The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) · 32 of 49 · tr. L. Williams
Third Dialogue-d
Why rather stay a pilgrim here below Than open through the air and us a way?
No spark of fire from that heart Goes out through the wide atmosphere.
Body of dust and ashes is not seen, Nor water-laden smoke ascends on high.
All is contained entire within itself, And not of flame, is reason, sense, or thought.
Lao.
This proposition is neither more nor less conclusive than the other.
But let us come at once to the answers if there be any.
Lic.
There are some certainly and full of sap.
Listen.
61.
Second response of the heart to the eyes .
He is a fool, who that alone believes, Which to the sense appears, who reason scorns.
My flame could never wing its way above.
The conflagration infinite remains unseen.
Between the eyes their waters are contained, One infinite encroaches not upon another.
Nature wills not that all should perish.
If so much fire's enough for so much sphere, Say, say, oh eyes, What shall we do?
how act In order to make known, or I, or you, For its deliverance, the sad plight of the soul?
If one and other of us both be hid, How can we move the beauteous god to pity?
Las.
If it is not true it is very well imagined: if it is not so, it is yet a very good excuse the one for the other; because where there are two forces, of the which one is not greater than the other, the operation of both must cease, for one resists as much as the other insists, and one assails while the other defends.
If therefore the sea is infinite and the force of tears in the eyes is immense, it never can be made apparent by speech, nor the impetus of the fire concealed in the heart break forth, nor can they (the eyes) send forth the twin torrent to the sea if the heart shelters them with equal tenacity.
Therefore the beautiful deity cannot be expected to be pitiful towards the afflicted soul because of the exhibition of tears which distil from the eyes, or speech which breaks forth from the breast.
Lib.
Now note the answer of the eyes to this proposition:— 62.
Second response of the eyes to the heart .
Alas!
we poured into the wavy sea, The strength of our two founts in vain, For two opposing powers hold it concealed, Lest it go rolling aimlessly adown.
The strength unmeasured of the burning heart, Withholds a passage to the lofty streams; Barring their twofold course unto the sea, Nature abhors the covered ground.[W] Now say, afflicted heart, what canst thou bring To oppose against us with an equal force?
Oh, where is he, will boast himself to be Exalted by this most unhappy love, If of thy pain and mine it can be said, The greater they, the less it may be seen.
[W] Ch'il coperto terren natura aborre.
Both these evils being infinite, like two equally vigorous opposites they curb and suppress each other: it could not be so if they were both finite, seeing that a precise equality does not belong to natural things, nor would it be so if the one were finite, the other infinite; for of a certainty the one would absorb the other, and they would both be seen, or, at least one, through the other.
Beneath these sentences, there lies hidden, ethical and natural philosophy, and I leave it to be searched for, meditated upon and understood, by whosoever will and can.
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 work on heroic furors and depicts the soul's passionate internal struggle and desire for divine wisdom.
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 repeatedly references infinite forces such as the 'conflagration infinite' and the 'sea is infinite', reflecting Bruno's cosmology.
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 dialogue centers on 'unhappy love' and the attempt to move the 'beauteous god', consistent with Bruno's scala amoris framework.
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.
Human faculties (heart and eyes) are depicted as containing cosmic forces (fire and water/sea), mirroring the structure of the heavens.
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 is described as a 'pilgrim here below' in a 'sad plight', indicating a state of exile from the divine.