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Medieval Sourcebook:
Alain of Lille [Alanus de lnsulis]: The Complaint of Nature. [ d. 1202.]
Alain of Lille [Alanus de lnsulis], d. 1202., The complaint of nature, Yale studies in English, v. 36 (1908), Translation of De planctu natura. by Douglas M. Moffat. Pagination preserved in etext form
PREFACE
The connection of the De Planctu Naturae with Chaucer's Parlement of Foules and with the Roman de la Rose,
the increasing frequency of references to it in works of scholarship,
and its inaccessibility save in its peculiar Latin, have furnished
the reasons for this translation. The importance of Alain's work
lies wholly in what it prompted; by itself it would have long
since been justly forgotten. The theologian whose great stores
of recondite learning made him the `Doctor Universalis' of his
day, the 'Alain who was very sage,' the 'Doctor SS. Theologiae
Famosus,' is now known chiefly because of two lines in the blithe
and famous poet of early England. He is distinctly of that number
to whom the interests of scholarship alone give any present life.
Still, in the eye of scholarship his importance is not inconsiderable.
Not only the great interest attending everything which has to
do with Chaucer, with the sources from which he drew, and with
the very hints which he throws out so lightly, but also the extensive
influence which the De Planctu Naturae exerted on Jean
de Meun's part of the Roman de la Rose, give him a position
which all investigators in these fields of literature must recognize.
The statement of Langlois that more than five thousand verses
of the Roman de la Rose are translated, imitated, or inspired
by the De Planctu Natura is excellent authority that this
mysterious scholar of the Middle Ages, whose very identity is
unascertained, was of those who beget kings in literature, though
he himself were none.
It is difficult to render the Latin of Alain into a translation
which shall be at once accurate and yet not too much at variance
with the fundamental standards of good English literature. Truly, as was said by Robert
Holkoth long ago, the De Planctu Naturae is 'metro et prosa
compositum scientifice multum et curiose.' Those repetitions,
those fantastic circumlocutions, those wonderful wild flowers
of metaphor which grow up constantly around him, leave on the
translator's hands a multitude of words, fluttering over an embarrassing
paucity of ideas, for which English synonyms and approved figures
of English speech are manifestly few or lacking. The present translator
hopes that he is not chargeable too heavily with the weaknesses
of a compromise. It has not been thought advisable to render into
anything but prose those portions of the original which are in
verse.
I have been unable to find any thoroughly good text of the De
Planctu Naturce. The one which I have used as a basis is that
of Thomas Wright, found in Satirical Poets of the Twelfth Century, Vol. 2 (Rolls Series, London, 1872) ; but several of the variants
which he notes, and several from the text of Migne in the Patrologia
Latina, Vol. 210 (Paris, 1855), which Wright does not note,
have been adopted, and a few emendations have been made. To all
such changes attention is called in the foot-notes.
I owe many thanks to Professor Charles U. Clark, of Yale University,
and to Dr. Richard M. Gummere, of Haverford College, for their
careful revision of large portions of the translation. To Professor
Albert S. Cook, of Yale University, at whose suggestion the work
was undertaken, I have been greatly indebted for help and guidance
at every stage.
D. M. M.
YALE UNIVERSITY,
May 2, 1908
THE BOOK OF ALAIN ON THE COMPLAINT OF NATURE.
METRE 1.
In lacrimas risus, in luctus gaudia verto.
I change laughter to tears, joy to sorrow, applause to lament,
mirth to grief, when I behold the decrees of Nature [1] in abeyance;
when society is ruined and destroyed by the monster of sensual
love; when Venus, fighting against Venus, makes men women; when
with s her magic art she unmans men. It is not pretense that travails
with sorrow, O adulterer! nor the tears of pretense, nor dissimulation;
rather is it grief, and birth itself is given to sorrow. The Muse
requests, this very grief commands, Nature implores that, as,
I weep, I give them a mournful song. Alas! Whither [2] has the
loveliness of Nature, the beauty of character, the standard of
chastity, the love of virtue departed? [3] Nature weeps, character
passes away, chastity is wholly banished from its former high
station, and become an orphan. The sex of active nature trembles
shamefully at the way in which it declines into passive nature.
Man is made woman, he blackens the honor of his sex, the craft
of magic Venus makes him of double gender. He is both predicate
and subject, he becomes likewise of two declensions, he pushes
the laws of grammar too far. He, though made by Nature's skill,
barbarously denies that he is a man. Art does not please him,
but rather artifice; even that artificiality cannot be called
metaphor; rather it sinks
1 Reading Naturam, with Migne.
2 Reading quo, with Migne.
3 Reading secessit, with Migne.
into viciousness. He is too fond of logic, with whom a simple
conversion causes the rights of Nature to perish. He strikes on
an anvil which emits no sparks. The very hammer deforms its own
anvil. The spirit of the womb imprints no seal on matter, but
rather the plowshare plows along [1] a sterile beach. Thus the
iambic measure goes badly with the dactylic foot of earthly love,
in which always the long syllable does not permit a short. Though
all the beauty of man humbles itself before the fairness of woman,
being always inferior to her glory; though the face of the daughter
of Tyndaris is brought into being [2]and the comeliness of Adonis
and Narcissus, conquered, adores her; for all this she is scorned,
although she speaks as beauty itself, though her godlike grace
affirms her to be a goddess, though for her the thunderbolt would
fail in the hand of Jove, and every sinew of Apollo would pause
and lie inactive, though for her the free man would become a slave,
and Hippolytus, to enjoy her love, would sell his very chastity.
Why do so many kisses lie untouched on maiden lips, and no one
wish to gain a profit from them? These once pressed on me would
sweeten my lips with flavor, and, honeyed, would offer a honeycomb
to the mouth; the spirit would go out in kisses, all given over
to the mouth, and play on lips with itself. So that until I should
in this way die, my course finished, I, as another self, would
in these kisses enjoy a happy life to the utmost. Not only does
the adulterous Phrygian pursue the daughter of Tyndaris, but Paris
with Paris devises unspeakable and monstrous acts. Not only does
Pyramus seek the kisses of Thisbe through the chink, but no small
opening of Venus pleases him. Not only does the son of Peleus
counterfeit the bearing
1. Reading tin, with Migne.
2 Reading formetur, with Migne.
of a maiden, that so to maidens he may prove himself dear, but
he wickedly gives away the gift of Nature for a gift, in selling
for the love of money his sex. Such deserve anathema in the temple
of Genius, for they deny the tithes of Genius and their own duties.
PROSE I.
Cum haec elegiaca lamentabili ejulatione crebrius recenserem.
While I with sorrowful lament was repeating these elegies over
and over again, a woman glided down from the inner palace of the
impassable heavens, and appeared, hastening her approach to me.
Her hair, which shone not with borrowed light but with its own,
and which displayed the likeness of rays, not by semblance, but
by native clearness surpassing nature, showed on a starry body
the head of a virgin. Twin tresses flowing loosely, [1] neither
forsook the parts above nor yet disdained to smile upon the ground
with a kiss. The line of a slender necklace , crossing itself
obliquely, divided the strife of her hair; nor was this ever [2]
a blemish in her appearance, but rather commanded its beauty [3].
And a golden comb smoothed into the dance of due orderliness the
gold of her hair .5 and wondered to have found a countenance agreeing,
for the gold of fancy imposed upon the vision the false conclusion
of harmonious color. But in truth her forehead, wide and full
and even, was of the milkwhite lily in color, and seemed to vie
with the lily. Her eyebrows, starry in golden brightness, had
neither
1 Reading quem, with B.
2 Reading umquam, with Migne.
3 Reading vultui erat detriments, sed praerat decori with Migne.
grown unduly into a forest of hairs, nor fallen into unmeet scantiness,
but between both held a mean. The clear calm of the eyes, which
attracted with friendly light, offered the freshness of twin stars.
Her nose, fragrant with lovely odor, and neither out of measure
low nor unduly prominent, had a certain distinction. The nard
of her breath gave the nose banquets of delicate perfume. Her
lips, gently .rounded, invited the tyros of Venus to kisses. Her
teeth, by some harmony of color, had the appearance of ivory.
The glowing fire of her cheeks, kindled with the light of roses,
with soft flame cheered her face; and this in turn chastened the
pleasing warmth with cool whiteness-like rose-color on fine linen.Her
smooth chin, fairer than crystalline light, wore a silvery brightness.
Her neck, while not unduly long, was molded gracefully, and did
not allow the nape to be close to the shoulders. The apples of
her breasts promised the ripeness of glorious youth. Her arms,
beautifully formed for the delight of the beholder, seemed to
ask for embraces. The finely drawn curve of her waist, which had
the mark of due moderation, brought her whole presence to the
height of perfection. And faith spoke other parts, which a more
secret habitation held aside, to be even better. For in her body
lay unapparent a more beautiful form, of whose joys the countenance
offered a foretaste: yet, as this very form made known, the key
of Dione had never opened the lock of its chastity. And although
the joy of her loveliness was so great, yet she tried to blot
out the smile of her beauty with precious tears. For a stealthy
dew, sprung from the welling of her eyes, proclaimed the flow
of inwards grief, and her very face, cast to earth with chaste
modesty, told of some injury done to the virgin herself. The sparkling crown of a regal diadem, shining with dances
of gems, brightened high on her head. No base alloy of gold, derogate
from high worth, and deceptive to the eye with false light, supplied
its substance but the pure nobility of gold itself. With marvelous
revolution and ceaseless turning, this diadem travelled from east
to west, and then by backward motion was continually restored
to its rising. And its incessant performing of this, and its constant
journeying to its starting-place, seemed almost a useless motion.
Some of these gems at one time offered to the sight miracles of
fresh day in the new sun of their light ; but at another time
by eclipse of their brilliancy seemed banished from the palace
of the same diadem. Others, which were fixed, maintained the vigil
of their sparkling, and were constant watchers. Among these a
circle, shining in the likeness of the zodiacal curve, and glittering
with chains of precious stones, cut across the thickly starred
space. And on this a group of twelve gems seemed, from the advance
of its numbers and from its especial splendor, to demand supremacy
over the others.
Furthermore, in the front of the diadem three jewels, by the
bold pride of their beams, supplanted and out-' shone the other
nine. The first stone condemned darkness to exile by its light,
and cold by its fire. On this, as the skillful deceptions of a
picture manifested there blazed the form of a lion. The second,
which was yet not inferior to the first in light, flashed in a
more prominent position in this same part of the diadem, and seemed
to look down on the other stones almost with indignation. On this,
in a perfect picture of the reality, a crab with varying and conflicting
motion went backward as it went forward, retreated gas it progressed,
and seemed to advance behind its own self The third stone redeemed the scant brightness of a stone
set over against it by the abundant wealth of its own clear light.
On this, as a truthful picture asserted, the mythical children
of Leda advanced and welcomed each other with mutual embraces.
In like manner, three stones, whose power was of second degree,
had set their thrones in an opposite part. Of these the first,
with little drops of moisture, gave the likeness of tears, and
saddened its look with counterfeit weeping. On this, as the fancy
of skilful engraving had drawn and set forth, the pitcher of the
Idean youth gurgled with flowing stream. The second stone kept
all resting-places for --s warmth ouf of its dominion, and with
icy numbness claimed winter for its guest. On this a picture gave,
by an illusive likeness of goat's wool, the hairy pelt of a goat.
The third stone, which had the appearance of crystalline light.
prophesied with banner of cold the coming of winter. On this the
old Haemonian with diligent bending of the bow threatened wounds,
yet never made good his threats. Playing upon another beautiful
side, three mild and fair gems delighted the eyes. The first of
these, aflame with the glow of rosy color, gave to view a rose;
and in it a bull showed the well-known marks of his head, and
was seen thirsting for battle. Another, of which the lustre was
exceptional, blessed the companies of its fellows with grace and
kindliness. On this a ram gloried in the nobility of its head,
and demanded the leadership of the flock. The third, which had
a greenish hue, cherished within it an emerald-like balm to freshen
the sight. On this, within a fancied river, fish swam according
to their kind, and sported in great numbers along the shore. On
the opposite side, the shining beauty of a group of three stars
sparkled with glad delight. Of these stones the first, beaming with the' golden sun
of its own splendor, wore the grace of unwearying beauty. On this,
as the poetical fancy' of the cutting showed, a virgin, by her
excelling fairness, like an Astraca rivaled the stars. The second
neither wantoned in excessive splendor nor begged the sparks of
a meagre glory, but rejoiced in a moderate flame. And on this,
below the steady tongue of a balance, in a truthful and yet artistic
representation, a pair of scales foretold the trial of weights.
The third, the faces of which turned and alternated, now promised
a kindly clearness, now gave itself up to the clouds of obscurity.
On this the figure of a scorpion stood out, and presaged with
its face laughter, with the sting of its tail tears.
Moreover, under the stations of these twelve stones a sevenfold
array of gems kept up with a continual circling, a marvelous sort
of play and pleasing dance. Nor did this dance lack the sweetness
of melodious sound. Now it frolicked in little notes, now it quickened
into tones rich and swelling, and now, with stronger trump, advanced
into the full burst of harmony, the depth of which stirred delight
in our ears, and brought the first joys of sleep to our eyes.
For since it is that moderate listening keeps away discontent,
so excess brings on weariness; and the drowsy hearing faded, tired
with the full and excessive melody. These seven stones, though
not held subject to the diadem itself by any bands of connection,
yet never deserted their fellowship of the upper stones. The highest
was a diamond. This, more economical of movement than the others,
but more spendthrift of ease, delayed very long in the completion
of its wide orbit. With such frostiness and great cold did it
slowly move that its essential form gave proof that it had been born under the Saturnian star. The second was an agate, which,
from its path being close at hand, was more easily seen than the
others. Its effect was with some to change hate to love, and with
others by its commanding virtue and power to render imperfect
charity perfect; for its kindly operation asserted it to be, by
close relationship of nature, of a family with the star of Jove.
The third was an asterite, in which the dominion of heat had taken
its station, and where was gathered the energy of the star Mars
and its peculiar quality preserved. This, with threatening countenance
of terrible splendor, warned destruction to others. The fourth
was a ruby, having the likeness of the sun. With its streaming
candle this banished the shades of night, and put to sleep the
eclipsed lamps of its fellows. Now in the regal authority of majesty
it ordered the others to make way, and now brought to the disturbance
a quiet power. Then with a sapphire came an amethyst, pressing
on the former's tracks, and tending it almost as a servant, yet
never prejudiced by the quality of the other's light. Apart from
the sapphire a little space, it either ran beside it round its
orbit, or followed, or the one star lagged and granted the other
the concession of going first. Of these two stones, the first
by its harmonious quality gave the effect of the Mercurial star;
the other, the effect of th6 Dionean. The last stone was a pearl,
which was set in the rim of the flashing crown, and which shone
with another's light, begging the aid of lustre from the ruby.
Within the presence of the latter's radiance it either increased
in the growth of its beam of light, or reached its full and shrank,
as if it worshiped the ruby; and it petitioned that it should
be re-adorned with the fires of its brother. and wear the beauties
of that light renewed. Now it repaired the losses of its wasted round by fixed and regular succor;
now, shorn of its beams, it lamented the loss of its proper majesty,
for this was silvery with crystal splendor, answering to the appearance
of the lunar star. The bright nobility of this diadem by all these
glories revealed the likeness of the firmament.
A garment, woven from silky wool and covered with many colors,
was as the virgin's robe of state. Its appearance perpetually
changed with many a different color and manifold hue. At first
it startled the sight with the white radiance of the lily Next,
as if its simplicity had been thrown aside and it were striving
for something better, it glowed with rosy life. Then, reaching
the height of perfection, it gladdened the sight with the greenness
of the emerald. Moreover, spun exceedingly fine so as to escape
the scrutiny of the eye it was so deliacate of substance that
you would think it and the air of the same nature. On it, as a
picture fancied to sight, was being held a parliament of of the
living creation. There theeagle, first assuming youth, then age,
and finally returning to the first, changed from Nestor to Adonis.
There the hawk, chief of the realm of the air, demanded tribute
from its subjects with i violent tyranny. The kite assumed the
character of, hunter, and in its stealthy preying seemed like
the ghost of the hawk. The falcon stirred up civil war against
the heron, though this was not divided with equal balance, for
that should not be thought of by the name of war where you strike,
but I only am struck.. The ostrich, disregarding a worldly life
for a lonely, dwelt like a hermit in solitudes of desert places.
The swan, herald of its own death, foretold with its honey sweet
lyre of music the stopping of its life. There on the peacock Nature had rained so great a treasure store of
beauty that you would think she afterwards would have gone begging.
The phoenix died in its real self, but, by some miracle of nature,
revived in another, and in its death aroused itself from the dead.
The bird of concord [1] paid tribute to Nature by decimating its
brood. There lived sparrows, shrunk to, low, pygmean atoms; while
the crane opposite went to the excess of gigantic size. The pheasant,
after it had endured the confinement of its natal island, flew
into our worlds, destined to become the delight of princes. The
cock, like a popular astrologer, told with its voice's clock the
divisions of the hours. But the wild cock derided its domestic
idleness, and roamed abroad, wandering through the woody regions.
The horned owl, prophet of misery, sang psalms of future deep
sorrowing. The night owl was so gross with the dregs of ugliness
that you would think that nature had dozed at its making. The
crow predicted things to come in the excitement of vain chatter.
The dubiously colored magpie kept up a sleepless attention to
argument. The jackdaw treasured trifles of its commendable thieving,2
showing the signs of inborn avarice. The dove drunk with the sweet
Dionean evil, labored at the sport of Cypris. The raven, hating
the shame of rivalry, did not confess for its brood its own offspring,
until the sign of dark color was disclosed, whereupon, as if disputing
with itself it acknowledged the fact. The partridge shunned now
the attacks of the powers of the air, now the traps of hunters,
now the warning barks of dogs. The duck and the goose wintered,
according to the same law of living, in their native land of streams.
The turtle-dove, widowed of its mate, scorned to return to love,
and
1. Migne reads ciconia, stork.
2. Lat. latrocinio laudabili
refused the consolation of marrying again. The parrot on the anvil
of its throat fashioned the coin of human speech. There the trick
of a false voice beguiled the quail, ignorant of the deceit of
the serpent's figure. The woodpecker, architect of its own small
house, with its beak's pick made a little retreat in an oak. The
hedge-sparrow, putting aside the role of stepmother, with the
maternal breast of devotion adopted as its child the alien offspring
of the cuckoo; but the offspring, though the subject of so great
a boon, yet knew itself not as own son, but as stepchild. The
swallow returned from its wandering, and made with mud under a
beam its nest and home. The nightingale, renewing the complaint
of its ravishment, and making music of harmonious sweetness, gave
excuse for the fall of its chastity. The lark, like a highsouled
musician, offered the lyre of its throat, not with the artfulness
of study but with the mastery of nature, as one most skilled in
the lore of melody; and refining its tones into finer, separated
these little notes into inseparable chains. The bat, bird of double
sex, held the rank of cipher among small birds. These living things,
although as it were in allegory moving there, seemed to exist
actually.
Fine linen with its white shaded into green, which the maiden,
as she herself shortly afterward said, had woven without a seam,
and which was not of common material, but rejoiced in a skilled
workmanship, served for her mantle. Its many intricate folds showed
the color of water, and on it a graphic picture told of the nature
of the watery creation, as divided into numerous species. There
the whale- fought with cliffs, and rushed on and rammed the forts
of ships with the rock of its hugely towering body. The sea-dog,
(the noisy sound of the name of which is doubly confusing, since it never barks), hunted the hares of its world
in the glades of the sea. The sturgeon offered the excellence
[1] of its flesh to royal tables -- as a special blessing. The
herring, that most common fish, relieved the hunger of the poor
with its body which is shared by all. The plaice atoned by its
delectable savor for the absence of meat in the forty days rigor.
The mullet, with the sweet spices of its flesh, enticed the palates
of those who tasted. The trout was baptized on the open sea and
entered into the salt gulfs, and was known by the name of salmon.
Dolphins by prophetic appearance foretold to ships the rage of
the sea to come. There was a fish with the lower members of a
siren, and with the face of a man. The luna, bereft of its own
light, revenged, seemingly in spite, its private injury on the
shell-fish; but the latter, as if laboring in corporeal new moon,
atoned for the loss. To these dwellers in the regions of the brine
had been assigned the middle portion of the mantle. Its remaining
portion held migratory fish, which wandered in various streams,
and had their haunts in their own land of fresher water. There
the pike, with tyrannical compulsion and not from warranted necessity,
imprisoned its subjects in the dungeon of its belly. The barbel,
from its small size not renowned, lived with the common fish on
more friendly terms. The shad accompanied the vernal season, and
offered with the joys of spring the delights of its savor, greeting
the tastes of men with its approach. The small muraena, slit with
many an opening, gathered the germs of fever for persons dining.
The eel, which copied the nature of the serpent, was thought because
of its like trait to be the serpent's descendant. The perch, armored
with javelins of spines, shunned the
1. Reading nobilitatem, with Migne.
insults of the sea-wolf the less. The cat-fish made up in its
swollen head that which it lost in the slimness of its lower body.
These pictures, finely drawn on the mantle in the manner of sculpture,
seemed by miracle to swim.
A damask tunic, also, pictured with embroidered work, concealed
the maiden's body. This was starred with many colors, and massed
into a thicker material approaching the appearance of the terrestrial
element. In its principal part man laid aside the idleness of
sensuality, and by the direct guidance of reason penetrated the
secrets of the heavens. Here the tunic had undergone a rending
of its parts, and showed abuses and injuries. But elsewhere its
parts were united in unbroken elegance, and suffered no discord
nor division. On these the magic of a picture gave life to the
animals of the earth. There the elephant, of prodigious size,
came forward in the field, and doubled the body given by nature
by a manifold usury. The camel, misshapen in the ruggedness of
its rough frame, ministered to the wants of men like a bought
slave. There the forehead of the gazelle was seen to be armed
with horns in place of a helmet. The bull, pawing the ground with
its feet, and roaring with horrible bellowings, foretold the thunderbolts
of its warfare. Oxen, which refused the martial exercise of the
bulls, stood gaping like rustics, in servile employment. The horse
was carried on by hot courage, and fought in aid of its rider,
breaking spear with soldier. The ass offended the ears with horrid
noises, like a singer of burlesque perpetrating barbarities on
music. The unicorn, lulled to sleep in a virgin's bosom, met in
sleep the dream of death by enemies [1]. The lion murmured songs
of its roar-
1. Migne has ab hostibus somnum mortis incurrebat, " met
through enemies the sleep of death." A. is to the same effect.
ing in the ears of its offspring, and by a wonderful natural magic
aroused in them the spark of life. The she-bear gave birth through
the openings of its nostrils to an ill-formed progeny; but by
licking and shaping them again and again with its long, pointed
tongue brought them to a better figure. The wolf lurked in hiding,
assuming the employment of the thief, and deserving of eminence
on the airy walk of the gallows. The panther roamed through the
woods in more open robbery, and preyed on a flock of sheep, not
only for their coats, but also for their very bodies. The tiger
did violence to the republic of grazing citizens with frequent
shedding of innocent blood. The wild ass threw aside the captivity
of the domestic ass, and, emancipated by Nature's command, inhabited
bold mountains. There the wild boar, by its murderous weapon of
a tusk, sold its death to the dogs for many an injury. The dog
rent the winds with unsubstantial wounds, and bit the air with
impatient tooth. The stag and doe, light in fleetness of foot,
gained life by their running, and cheated the wicked jaws of pursuing
dogs. The he-goat, clothed in false wool, seemed to disgust the
nostrils with a four days' stench. The ram, robed in a nobler
tunic, rejoiced in a plurality of wives, and beguiled the honor
of marriage. The little fox cast off the dulness of the brute
creation, and strove for the finer sagacity of man. The hare,
seized with melancholy dread, not in sleep, but in the stupor
of fear, dreamed, terrified, of the approach of dogs. The rabbit,
which tempers the wrath of our cold climate by its pelt, fought
off the attacks of our hunger with its own flesh. The ermine,
scorning to be wedded to a more humble garment, laughed or wept
in a splendid marriage with lustrous color. The beaver, lest it
should suffer division of its very body by an enemy, cut off its end parts. The
lynx rejoiced in such clearness of eyesight 4-5 that, compared
with it, the other animals seemed blear-eyed. The marten and the
sable, by the elegance of their fur, brought the half-completed
beauty of the coverings of the other animals, when it asked for
supplements, to the full. This representation of acting form presented
these animal figures, as feasts of pleasure, to the eyes of beholders.[1]
Now what imagination slumbered in the many pictures on the shoes
and the undergarment, and in the lower, concealed clothing, I
did not establish with any certainty. But yet, as the assistance
of some frail probabilities suggested, I think that there laughed
there the delight of a picture of the natures of herbs and trees.
For there trees were now clothed with purple tunics, now fringed
with verdant foliage; now they gave birth to the sweet-scented
infancy of flowers, now matured into a goodlier fruit. But inasmuch
as I knew of this series of pictures by hazardous thought and
probability alone, and not by the faith of certainty, I pass it
by, buried in the peace of silence. But the shoes, which had taken
their material from soft leather, followed so closely the forms
of her feet that they seemed to have been born on them, or, so
to speak, marvelously inscribed on them. On these, which scarcely
ever fell away from their true quality there flourished, in the
imagination of a picture, delicate flowers.
1 Reading videntium, with B.
METRE II
Illic forma rosae.
There the form of the rose, faithfully painted, and erring very
little from true appearance, matched the color of purple with
its own blush, and had tinged the ground with its blood. There,
playing with its companion blossoms, was the lovely, fragrant
flower of Adonis. The tall lily's silver proclaimed the fields
and the valley-depths. The thyme, contentious with unequal lip,
and jealous of the other blooms, vied with its companion flower,
narcissus, and the merry rivers --laughed with quiet murmurs.
The light of all shone the columbine, of luxuriant aspect. The
tiny bloom of the violet, speaking of the ease of the spring-tide,
starred the arbute trees, its face full of the beauty of art.
Here she had ordered a variety of flower to live, Which [1] was
a writing-surface of royal name, though yet ignorant of the thumb
of the writer. These are the riches of the spring and its mantles,
the beauty of the earth and its stars, which the art of the pictures
showed, representing the blossoms with deceiving skill. With these
blooming garments of flowers does the graciousness of the spendthrift
spring ennoble the meadows, some showing pure white, others purple,
being woven by the skilful right hand of Favonius.
1. Reading quae with B. and Migne.
PROSE II.
Haec vestium ornamenta quamvis plenis suae splendidilatis flammarent
ardoribus.
Although these decorations of the garments flamed with the glow
of their own full splendor, yet their lustre suffered eclipse by the star of the virgin's beauty. The
virgin, furthermore, on tiles, with the aid of a reed pen, called
up and pictured various images of things. Still the pictures would
not keep closely but quickly vanish d to the material beneath
them, and died away, leaving no traces. Although she often quickened
them and caused them to live, yet they could not endure in the
plan of her composition. Now the virgin, as before said, came
forth from the bounds of the celestial region, and was borne in
her shining chariot toward the lowly dwelling of the suffering
world. She was drawn by the birds of Juno herself, which were
not disciplined in the service of the yoke, but were united by
their own willingness. And a man who towered above the head of
the virgin and the chariot, and whose countenance breathed not
the commonness of earth, but rather the mystery of godship, aided
the weakness of the womanly nature, and guided the approach of
the chariot in a well-regulated course. While I was collecting
my rays of sight-the maniples, as it were, of my eyes-to contemplate
the height of this beauty, they, not daring to meet such grace
and majesty, and weakened by the blows of splendor, fled, very
fearful, to the tents of the eyelids. At the virgin's coming you
would have thought that all the elements were keeping solemn festival,
renewing, so to speak, their own natures. The firmament ordered
its stars to shine more brightly than their wont, and lit the
virgin's path, as it were, with its candles. And because of this
the light of day itself was seen to wonder at their great boldness,
since it saw them appear almost insolently in its presence. Phoebus,
too, assuming a countenance gladder than usual, disclosed and
poured out on the approach of the virgin all the riches of his
light. To his sister, also, whom he had deprived of the ornaments of his
splendor, he returned the garment of delight, and ordered her
to meet the coming queen. The air put away the tearful visage
of clouds, and with the favor of a clear face smiled upon the
maiden's approach. Tossed at first in the madness of the north
wind's anger, now it rested pleasantly in the lap of Favonius.
Birds, through some natural inspiration, sported with delightful
play of wings, and gave the virgin show of veneration. Juno, who
but a little. while before had scorned the embraces of Jove, was
so carried away with joy that, with many a laughingly so glance
of her eyes, she allured her husband to the, delights of love.
The sea, until then tom in tumultuous floods, now observed the
coming of the virgin with solemn ceremony, and promised the perpetual
peace of rest; for AEolus, that his winds and tempests in her
presence should no longer [1] raise civil wars, bound them in
his cells. Fish swam out into the upper waters, in so far as the
inactivity of their sensual existence permitted, and with joy
and delight knew in advance the coming of their mistress. Thetis,
celebrating her marriage with Nereus, purposed to conceive another
Achilles. And maidens, whose beauty not only stole away the reason
of man, but also made the celestials forget their godship, came
forth from the places of streams, and, like bearers of tribute,
presented little gifts of aromatic nectar to the coming queen.
When the virgin had graciously received these, she showed her
love for the maidens by the encircling yoke of embraces, and by
many a repeated kiss. The earth, lately stripped of its adornments
by the thieving winter, through the generosity of spring donned
a purple tunic of flowers, that it might
[1] Reading amplius, with Migne.
not, inglorious in ragged vestments, appear to the young virgin
unbecomingly. And the spring, like an artisan skilled in weaving,
in order the more happily to welcome her approach, wove garments
for the trees. and with a sort of bowed These lowered their leaves,
veneration as if they were bending their knees, offered her their
prayers. Out of them came maidens who enriched the treasures of
the actual day by the day of their beauty, and bore in cedar vessels
spices prepared from the kinds of herbs that they represent; and,
as if paying their tribute to the young virgin, bought her favor
with their gifts. Nymphs of the dell filled their laps with flowers,
and now reddened the royal chariot with blushing blossoms, now
made it lily-like with white flower -leaves. Flora generously
presented the virgin with an undergarment of fine linen, which
she had worked for her husband, that she might merit his embraces.
Proserpine, loathing the couch of her Tartarean spouse, and returning
to her native upper world, was unwilling to be denied the presence
of her mistress. And the animals of the earth, taught by some
natural instinct, on learning of the virgin's approach sported
with glad gaiety. So was the sum of all things eager in attention
to her, and with wonderful rivalry strove to gain her favor.
METRE III.
Floriger horrentem Zephyrus laxaverat annum.
Flower-bearing Zephyrus had softened the rugged year, and quelled
the wars of Boreas with its peace, and bathed in a hail of flowers,
rained privet-bloom, and ordered the blossoming snows to be in
the meadows. The spring, like a lively fuller, refreshed the garments of the fields , and with the fire of its purple kindled the dresses
of the flowers. It gave back foliage to the trees which the winter
had shorn, thus restoring that vesture which the other had formerly
taken away. It was the season in which, to the applause of Dryads,
the abundant favor of the spring spreads out its treasures in
its fields; in which, while the hardier strength is present, the
infancy of flowers rises higher, and draws away from its mother
earth; in which the mirror of the violet [1] clings to its earthy
cradle, and, with fresh countenance, asks for the breath of the
air. It was the season in which the earth, her head starred with
roses, with full constellation rivals the sky ; in which the almond-tree
flies its banners and proclaims the beginning of summer, and with
its bloom calls out the joys of spring; in which the budded vine
embraces its elm's wedded bosom, and thinks on its giving birth.
The candle of the sun banished [2] winter's shade, forcing all
cold to suffer exile. Still there lurked withdrawn in many woods
an illusory winter, which the newborn shadiness of the forest
had made with leaves. Now to her flower-child Juno gave the breasts
of dew with which this nourisher first suckles her offspring.
It was the season in which the strength of Phoebus awakens the
dead grasses, commanding all to rise from their burial-mounds;
in which the joyful aspect of spring makes calm the world, and
wipes away the tears of winter from its face, so that a flower
may commit itself to the good faith of the air, and wintry cold
blast not the first blossom ; in which Phoebus visits the earth,
groaning with the sluggishness of winter, and greets it with joyful
light; in which the latest period of time puts away age, and the
old world begins to be a boy; in which Phoebus spoils night
1 Lat. violae speculuim.
2 Reading proscripsit, with B.
of its proper hours, and the pygmy day commences to become a giant;
in which the Phrixean herd rejoices in its friend the sun, pays
its tribute, and makes ready a welcome for Phoebus ; in which
the nightingale, singing a song with a tongue of honeyed music,
celebrates the festival of its own spring-time, in jubilee for
which it so strikes the lyre of its throat that with its own mouth
it proclaims a very god; in which the lark with sweet sound counterfeits
the cithara flies to the gods above, and talks with Jove. A silver
splendor clothed the wanton streams, and had ordered its daylight
to be on the rivers. One could see the garrulous flow of a changing
fountain, the murmur of the running of which was a prologue to
sleep. By the glory of its appearance the fountain itself asked
that tired man take draughts of it.
PROSE III
Hac igitur amoenantis temporis juventute.
But the virgin was not gladdened by the acclamations of any of
these things in the freshness of this pleasant season, and could
not moderate her former grief. Lowering the chariot to the ground,
she came toward me with modest approach, beautifying the earth
with her footsteps. After I had looked on her a time, not far
distant from me, I fell on my face, prostrated by stupor of mind
and all buried in the delirium of ecstasy, and the powers of my
senses imprisoned; and, neither in life nor in death, I struggled
between the two. She, kindly raising me, strengthened my dizzy
steps with the comfort of her supporting hands, and, encircling
me in her embrace and sweetening my lips with modest kisses, made
me well, who was weak and sick with stupor, by the honey-flowing balm of her
speech. When she saw that I had returned to myself, she depicted
for my mental perception the image of a real voice, and by this
brought into actual being words which had been, so-to speak, archetypes
ideally preconceived.
'Alas!' said she, 'what blindness of ignorance, what delirium
of mind, what failing of the senses, what infirmity of the reason
has placed a cloud on thine understanding, has forced thy spirit
into exile, has dulled the power of thy feeling, has made thy
mind to sicken, so that not only thine intellect is cheated out
of its quick recognition of thy Nourisher, but that also thy power
of discerning as it were smitten by a strange and monstrous sight,
suffers a collapse at my very appearance? Why has recognition
of my face strayed from thy memory? Thou, in whom my gifts bespeak
me, who have blessed thee with such abundant favor and kindness;
who, from thine early age, as viceregent of God the Creator, have
ordered by sure management thy life's proper course; who in time
past brought the fluctuating material of thy body out from the
impure essence of primordial matter into true being; who pitied
thy misshapen countenance, which, so to speak, cried often to
me, and marked it with the stamp of human appearance, and ennobled
it, destitute before of beauty and grace of lineament, with the
more excellent vesture of features. And here, arranging the different
offices of the members for the protection of the body, I ordered
the senses, as guards of the corporeal realm, to keep watch, that
like spies on foreign enemies they might defend the body from
external assault. So would the material part of the whole body,
being adorned with the higher glories of nature, be united the more agreeably when it came to marriage with its
spouse the spirit; and so would not the spouse, in disgust at
the baseness of its mate, oppose the marriage. Thy spirit, also,
I have stamped with vital, powers, that it might not, poorer than
the body, envy its successes. And in it I have established a power
of native strength, which is a hunter of subtle matters in the
pursuit of knowledge, and establishes them, rendered intelligible,
in the understanding. On it, also, .1 have impressed the seal
of reason, to set aside by the winnowing fan of its discrimination
the emptiness of falsehood from the serious matters of truth.
Through me, also, the power of memory serves thee, hoarding in
the treasure-chest of its recollection the glorious wealth of
knowledge. With these gifts, then, I have blessed both, that neither
might groan over its own poverty, or complain at the other's affluence.
And just as this marriage is brought to pass by my consent, so
is the same marital bon d dissolved according to my decision.
Not in thee particularly, but also in all things universally,
shines out the abundance of my power. I am she who have fashioned
the form and eminence 'of man into the likeness of the original
mundane mechanism, that in him, as in a mirror of the world itself,
combined nature may appear. For just as, of the four elements,
the concordant discord, the single plurality, the dissonant consonance,
the dissenting agreement, produce the structures of the palace
of earth, so, of four ingredients, the similar unsimilarity, the
unequal equality, the unformed conformity, the separate identity,
firmly erect the building of the human body. And those qualities
which come together as mediators among the elements -these establish
a firm peace among the four humors.
And just as the army of the planets opposes with contrary motion
the fixed rolling of the firmament, so in man is found a continual
hostility between lust and reason. For the activity of reason,
taking its rise from a celestial source, passes through the low
levels of earth, and, watchful of heavenly things, turns again
to heaven. The activities of lust, on the other band, wandering
waywardly and contrary to the firmament of reason, turn and slip
down into the decline of things of earth. Now the latter, lust,
leads the human mind into the ruin of vices, so that it perishes
; the former, reason, bids it, as it rises, to ascend to the serenity
of virtue. The one dishonors man, and changes him to a beast;
the other mightily transfigures him into a god. Reason illuminates
the darkness of the brain by the light of contemplation; lust
extinguishes the radiance of the mind by the night of desire.
Reason makes man to talk with angels; lust forces him to wanton
with brutes. Reason teaches man to find in exile a home; lust
forces him in his home to be an exile. And, in this, man's nature
cannot reproach me for my ordering and management. For, out of
the council of wisdom, I have set such a war of opposition between
these-antagonists that if, in this strife, reason bend down lust
to defeat, the victory will not be without its following reward.
For prizes won by victories shine more fairly than other presents.
Gifts acquired by labor are brighter and more delightful than
all those that are free. And he deserves the commendation of greater
praise who toils and receives little, than he who receives much
at ease. The earlier labor, pouring a certain sweetness into the
following recompense, rewards the worker with greater favor.
In these then, and in the greater gifts of nature, the universe finds its qualities in man. Hear how in this universe,
as in a great city, order is established by the control of a majestic
government. In the heavens, as in the citadel of a human city,
resides imperially the everlasting Ruler. From Him eternally has
gone forth the command that every individual thing should be known
and written in the book of His providence In the air, as in the
middle of the city, the heavenly army of angels does service,
and with delegated control diligently extends its guard over man.
Man, like one foreign-born, dwelling in a suburb of the universe,
does not refuse obedience to the angelic host. In this state,
then, God is commanding, the angel administering, man serving.
God by command creates man; the angel by work procreates him;
man by obedience recreates himself. God by decree determines a
thing; the angel by action fashions it; man submits himself to
the will of the controlling spirit. God commands with the mastery
of authority; the angel administers with the service of action;
man obeys with the mystery of regeneration. But the present line
of our thought has gone too far astray, which [1] would venture
to raise the theme to the ineffable mystery of Godship, in the
effort to grasp which the breath of our mind faints. Now a likeness
to this most excellently ordered state arises in man. In the
citadel of the head rests wisdom, who commands; to whom, as to
a goddess, the other powers, as demi-goddesses, do obeisance.
For her, inborn understanding and ability in logic, as well I
as the faculty to recall the past, which dwell in different -rooms
of the head, are eager to do service. In the heart, as in the
midst of the human city, magnanimity has established her dwelling-place,
and, acknowledging
1. Reading quae with Migne.
her service under the dominion of wisdom, works as that authority
determines. The loins, like outlying districts, give over the
extreme parts of the body to passionate pleasures. These, not
daring to oppose the direction of magnanimity, serve her will.
In this realm. then, wisdom assumes the place of commander, magnanimity
the likeness of the administrator, passion acquires the appearance
of the servant. In other parts, also, of the human body is shown
the likeness of the universe. For just as in the universe the
boon of the sun's heat heals things which are sick, so in man
a heat which proceeds from the depths of the heart enlivens and
freshens the members of the human body. And just as the moon in
the workings of the universe is the mother of many humors, so
in man the liver imparts a humor to his members. And just as the
moon, when deprived of the light of the sun, pales, so the strength
of the liver becomes inactive when widowed from the enlivening
comfort of the heart. And just as in the absence of the sun the
air is clothed in darkness, so without the aid of the heart the
vital power pants in vain. In addition to these, see how the
universe changes its appearance with the various successions of
seasons-how now it rejoices in the boyhood of spring, now advances
in the youth of summer, now matures in the manhood of autumn,
now whitens in the old age of winter. Like change of season, and
the same variety, alter the age of man. For when the dawn of age
arises in human nature, there begins man's early spring. When
the chariot of life has gained the farther turning-posts, man
basks in the summer of youth. But when longer existence shall
have completed the ninth hour of age, so to speak, he passes beyond
into the autumn of manhood. And when the day of his age sinks
towards the west, as decay now announces the evening of life, the wintry frost of old
age makes him grow white with its rime. In all these things resounds
unspeakably the working of my power. Yet I have determined to
cover the face of my might in very many ways, preserving
its mystery from commonness, for fear lest, if I should impart
to man a close knowledge of myself, those matters, which at first
are prized among men because unknown, would afterward, when known
[1], be held of little worth. For, as the common proverb witnesses,
communication of a thing is the mother of contempt. The trump
of Aristotelian authority declares that he lessens the majesty
of mysteries who divulges secrets to the unworthy. But lest I
should seem, in this my prerogative and power, to be detracting
arrogantly from God, I profess most emphatically that I am the
lowly disciple, of the Supreme Ruler. For I, as I work, am not
able to press my step in the footprints of God as He works, but
I contemplate Him in His activity from a long way off, as it were
with longing. His operation is simple, mine is multiform; His
work is faultless, mine is defective; His is marvelous, mine is
transient; He is incapable of being born, I was born; He is the
maker, I am the made; He is the Creator of my work, I am the work
of the Creator; He works from nothing, I beg work from another;
He works by His own divine will, I work under His name. By His
nod alone He orders a thing to exist; but my activity is the mark
of the divine activity, and, compared with the divine power, thou
canst see that my power is impotent. So mayest thou perceive that
my achievement is defective, and consider that my strength is
of trifling degree. Take counsel from the author of theological
1. Reading nota, with B. and Migne.
riches, to whose trustworthiness, rather than to my strong opinion,
thou oughtest to give assent. For, according to his sure testimony,
man by my working is born, by the might of God is born again.
Through me he is called from not being into being; through Him
he is led from being on into a better being. For through me man
is begotten unto death, through Him he is created unto life again.
But the mystery of my profession is disregarded by the mystery
of this second birth, for such a birth does not need such a midwife;
but rather am I, Nature, ignorant of the nature of this birth.
and in the effort to comprehend these matters the keenness of
my intellect grows dull, the light of my reason is blurred. For
the understanding is amazed at the things not understood, the
perception is confused by the things to be perceived; and since
here all theory of natural objects fails, let us revere the mystery
of so great a thing by the strength of faith alone. And it is
not strange if here theology does not extend me her friendship,
since in many matters we are conscious, not of enmities, but of
diversities. I attain faith by reason, she attains reason by
faith. I know in order that I may believe, she believes in order
at she may know. I assent by perceiving and knowing, she perceives
by assenting. I barely see the things that are visible, she comprehends
in their reflection things incomprehensible. I by my intellect
hardly compass trifles, she in her comprehension compasses immensities.
I, almost like a beast, walk the earth, she serves in secret heaven.
Now, although it is not part of my office to treat of what has
been said, yet I have allowed my discourse to stray thither, that
thou mightest not doubt that, compared with the superlative might
of God, my power is exceedingly small.
But although my activity is deficient when compared with the divine
power, nevertheless it exceeds human power, when balanced with
it, greatly. And therefore in a comparison of three steps, we
can find three grades of power; so that the power of God may be
called the superlative, that of Nature the comparative, that of
man the positive. All this discourse gives thee, and without any
questioning doubt, a close knowledge of me. And-to speak more
intimately-I am Nature, who have sought after thee for my presence
with the gift of my esteem, and thought thee worthy to bless with
my conversation.
When Nature unveiled to me through these words the face of her
being, and by her reminder, as by a key, unlocked ahead for me
the door to her acquaintance, the little cloud of stupor, which
had lain close on my mind, lifted [1]. And by this reminder,
as by some medicinal potion, the sick stomach, so to speak, of
my mind cast out all the remnants of its illusion. Then, restored
anew to myself from my mind's wandering, I fell headlong at the
feet of Nature, and, in the place of a salutation, marked them
with pressure of many a kiss. Then, rising and composing myself,
presented her in speech, with a reverent bowing of the head as
to divine majesty. the offering of a salutation. Fittingly I fled
to the retreat of excuse, and with prayers made from the honey
of humility I entreated her kindness not to assign the fact that
I had paid her coming no joyous greeting to the fault of heedlessness,
nor to impute it to arrogant displeasure, nor to ascribe it to
the venoms of ingratitude. But rather at her appearance I had
been stupefied in the false death of ecstasy, as it were struck
dumb at the strange presence of a marvelous apparition; and I
1. Reading evaporavit, with A
said that it was not to be wondered at if before such divinity
the countenance of mortality in me paled, if in the noon of such
majesty the small beam of my perception went out into the twilight
of error, if at the appearing of such bliss my poor wretchedness
was ashamed. For the dark obscurity of the ignorance of weak humanity,
and its impotent dumbness of amazement, and its frequent fits
of stupor, are allied by a certain bond of brotherhood, inasmuch
as, from the close association, frail human nature is always wont,
like a pupil disciplined by a teacher instructing him and informing
him of the laws of his race, both to be darkened by ignorance
at the first sight of new subjects and in the attention to great
principles, and to be smitten with stupor and to be overcome with
amazement. While this manner of excuse was gaining for me the
kindly hearing of the queen, and was earning her favor the more
agreeably, and besides was giving me the confidence that I should
hear greater things, I laid before her consideration a certain
unsettled doubt of mine, which was disturbing the welcome in my
mind with extreme and pressing restlessness, and I' proceeded
in these words of inquiry:
METRE IV
O Dei proles, genetrixque rerum.
`O offspring of God, mother of all things, bond and firm chain
of the universe, jewel of earth, mirror to mortality, light-bringer
of the world! Peace, love, virtue, government, power, order, law,
end, way, light, source, life, glory, splendor, beauty, form,
pattern of the world! Thou who, guiding the universe with thy
reins, dost join all things in firmness with the knot of concord, and dost with the bond of peace marry heaven
to earth; who, reflecting upon the simple ideas of mind, dost
fashion every species of thing, and, cloaking matter with form,
dost shape the cloak of form with thy finger; whom the heavens
befriend, whom the air serves, whom the earth cherishes, whom
the wave worships, to whom, as to the mistress of the universe,
each thing pays its tribute; who, linking day to night by interchange,
dost grant the candle of the sun to day, and puttest to sleep
the clouds of night with the shining mirror of the moon; who inlayest
the heavens with the gold of manifold stars, making bright the
seat of our upper-air, and filling the sky with the gems of the
constellations and with divers soldiery; who changest the face
of the heavens, and variest its appearance, and grantest life
and population to our airy region, binding it together with law;
at whose nod the world grows young, the forest is curled with
leafy locks, and clothed in its tunic of blossoms the earth exults;
who dost repress and increase the threatening sea, cutting short
the course of the fury of the deep, lest the seething of the flood
should prevail to bury the region of earth! Disclose the reason
to me, who desire it, why thou, a stranger from the skies, seekest
the earth, why thou offerest to our world the gifts of thv deity,
why thy features are bedewed with a shower of weeping, what the
tears on thy countenance foretell ? Weeping is a sufficient and
faithful tongue of inner grief.'
PROSE IV.
Praefala igitur virgo hujus quaestionis solutionem in vestibulo
excubare demonstrans.
Then the virgin, showing that the answer to this question lay
watchful on its threshold, said:
'Can it be that thou dost not know that the transgression of the
earthly sphere, that the disorder in s the ordering of the world,
that the carelessness of government, that the unjustness of law,
have forced me to descend from the innermost sanctuaries of heavenly
mystery to the common brothels of earth? If thou wert willing
to gather up in the loving sympathy of thy mind and to treasure
in the closet of thy heart that which I would say, I would unfold
the labyrinth of thy perplexity.'
To these words I returned, with strict restraint of my voice,
a fitting reply.
For nothing,' said I, 'O heavenly queen, do I hunger with a more
eager desire than the explanation of this question.'
Then said she:
'Since all things are by the law of their being held subject to
my laws, and ought to pay to me a rightful and established tribute,
almost all, with just dues and with seemly presentation, regularly
obey my commands; but from this general rule man alone is excluded
by an abnormal exception. He, stripped of the cloak of decency,
and prostituted in the shameless brothel of unchastity, dares
to stir tumult and strife not only against the majesty of his
queen, but also to inflame the madness of intestine war against
his mother. Other creations, on which l have bestowed the lesser
gifts of my favor, throughout the rank of their activities are bound in willing subjection to the inviolability
of my commands. But man, who exhausted the treasury of almost
all my riches, tries to overthrow the natural impulses of nature,
and arms against me the violence of wicked lust. Consider how
almost all things, according to the proclamation of my command,
perform. reasonably as their native character demands, the fixed
duties of my law. The firmament, according to my principle and
teaching, leads all things not in vain in daily circuit, and with
identity of turning advances its course, and retreats from whither
it has advanced. The stars, as they shine for the glory of the
firmament itself, and clothe it with their splendors, and complete
the short day of their journey, and compass the celestial space
with their various orbits, serve my majesty. The planets, according
to the going forth of my command and order, restrain the rapid
motion of the firmament, going to their rising with contrary steps,
and afterward repairing to the place of their setting. Thus, too,
the air, disciplined under my instruction, now rejoices with a
kindly breeze, now weeps in the tears of the clouds as if in sympathy,
now is angered by the raging of the winds, [1] now is shaken by
the threatening rumble of thunder, now is parched in the furnace
of heat, now is sharpened with the severity of cold. The birds,
which have been fashioned in various forms under my supervision
and ordering, marvel greatly at my teachings, as they cross the
floods of air on the oarage of their wings. Because of my intervening
mediation, the sea is joined closely to the earth by the firm
bonds of friendship, and does not dare to violate its solemn obligations
of
1. Migne has also nunc coruscationibus illuminator, 'now
flashes with lightning.'faith sworn with its sister. and fears to stray further into the
habitations of earth than the limit established for its wandering.
At my mere [1] I will and wish it is now vexed into the wrath
of the storm, now returns to the peace of tranquillity, now, borne
aloft by its swelling pride, rises to the likeness of a mountain,
now is leveled out into a smooth plain. The fish, bound to their
vow of my acknowledgment, fear greatly to detract from my rules
and canons. By my order and edict, the rains are married to the
earth in a kind of imperial embrace. They, laboring with untiring
production at the creation of progeny, cease not to be parents
of the various species of things. The terrestrial animals beneath
my examination and management do not profess activities at variance
with the sovereignty which is over their obedience. The earth
now whitens with the hoariness of frosts, now is fringed with
flowery vegetation. The forest now has grown its leafy hair, now
is shorn by the sharp razor of winter. Winter holds the buried
seeds deep in the lap of mother earth, spring sets the captives
free, summer ripens the harvests, autumn displays her riches.
But why should I permit the course of my narration to stray to
instances? Man alone rejects the music of my harp, and raves under
the lyre of frenzied Orpheus. For the human race, derogate from
its high birth, commits monstrous acts in its union of genders,
and perverts the rules of love by a practice of extreme and abnormal
irregularity. Thus, too, man, become the tyro of a distorted passion,
turns the predicate into direct contraposition, against all rules.
Drawing away from power to spell of love aright, he is proved
an unlettered sophist. He avoids the fitting relation of the Dionean
art and falls to
1 Reading tantum, with Migne.
vicious perversion. And while he subverts me with such pursuit,
he also in his frenzy plots execution against me. I grieve that
I have widely adorned men's natures with so many privileges and
beauties, for they abuse and bring the honor of honor to disgrace,
deform the fairness of the body with the ugliness of lust, mar
the color of beauty with lurid paint - the hue of adulterous desire-and
even, as they blossom into vices, deflower the bloom of Flora.
Why did I deify the countenance of Helen with divine grace, who
forced the use of her beauty awry into the abuse of harlotry,
breaking her faith with her royal couch, and binding herself in
marriage with Paris? Pasiphae, also, driven by the madness of
inordinate lust, in the form of a cow corruptly celebrated her
bestial nuptials with a brute animal, and, concluding with a viler
error, ended by the miscreated enormity of the bullock. Myrrha,
roused by the stings of myrrh-breathing Venus, and fallen from
the affection of a daughter to a lust for her father, filled and
renewed with her father the office of her mother. Medea, cruelly
treating her own son in order that she might erect the inglorious
work of love, destroyed love's small and glorious work. Narcissus,
when his shadow falsely told of another Narcissus, was filled
with dreamy thoughts, and, believing his very self to be another,
ran to the danger of passion for himself. And many other youths,
clothed by my favor with noble beauty, who have been crazed with
love of coin, have turned their hammers of love to the office
of anvils. Such a great body of foul men roam and riot along the
breadth of the whole earth by whose seducing contact chastity
herself is poisoned. Of such of these men as profess the grammar
of love, some embrace only the masculine gender, some the feminine,
others the common or indiscriminate. Some, as of heteroclite gender,
are declined irregularly, through the winter in the feminine,
through the summer in the masculine. Some, in the pursuit of the
logic of love, establish in their conclusions the law of subject
and the law of predicate in proper relation. Some, who have the
place of the subject, have not learned how to form a predicate.
Some only predicate, and will not await the proper addition of
the subject's end. Others scorning to enter into the court of
Dione devise a miserable sport below its vestibule. Against all
these justice makes her complaint, the law is armed and together
they strive to avenge their wrongs with the sword of retribution.
Thou wilt not marvel, then, if I depart into these strange, unholy
words, since unholy men dare to practice licentiousness. For I
throw them forth indignantly, to the end that virtuous men so
may respect the character of chastity, and that the shameless
may be restrained from the lewd practices of lust. Indeed, a knowledge
of evil is expedient for security, for it punishes the guilty,
branding them with the mark of shamelessness, and fortifies those
who are without the armor of caution. Now my explanation has filed
away and erased the worry of thy doubt. For these reasons, then,
did I pass from the secret places of the heaven's court above,
and descend to the lowlands of this mortal earth, that I might,
With thee as with my friend and confidant, lay down my sad burden
of the accursed vices of men, and with thee determine what answering
punishment should be given to such rebellion in crime, in order
that the sting of the punishment might be made as great as the
scourge of those crimes, and might equal them in retribution.'
Then said 1:
`O thou who directest all things, did I not fear to provoke loathing
in thy kindness by the number of my questions, I would expose
to the light of thine understanding the shadows of another doubt
of mine.'
'Nay, rather,' she answered, 'do thou impart to our hearing all
thy questions, not only those of recent birth but also those aged
in the rust of years, that the agitatiton of thy doubts may be
quieted by the sure strength of our explanations.'
Then said I:
`I marvel as I think of the compositions of the poets, why thou
armest the points of these invectives solely against the faults
of human kind, while we also read that the Gods limped with the
same steps of transgression. For Jupiter, who carried away the
Phrygian boy to the upper world, bore for him there a proportionate
desire; and while he appointed him -as the charge of bearing him
the cup at his table during the day, he made him his bedfellow
on the couch at night. And Bacchus and Apollo, co-heirs of the
paternal lewdness, turned to women, not in the power of godlike
strength, but by the trick of superstitious glove, feigning to
be boys.'
Then she, her first calm look much disquieted, said:
What! in thine asking dost thou clothe in the likeness of a doubt
a question which is not worthy to take the form of a doubt? Dost
thou attempt to give faith to the dreamy fancies of the poets,
which the activity of poetical art has portrayed? Does not philosophy's
saner treatment file away and erase with higher understanding
that which is learned in the child's cradle of poetic teaching?
Can it be that thou dost not know how poets expose naked falsehood
to their hearers with no protecting cloak, that they may intoxicate
their ears, and, so to speak, bewitch them with a melody of honeyed
delight; or how they cloak that same falsehood with a pretense
of credibility, that, by means of images of objective things,
they may mold the souls of men on the anvil of dishonorable assent
; or that in the shallow exterior of literature the poetic lyre
sounds a false note, but within speaks to its hearers of the mystery
of loftier understanding, so that, the waste of outer falsity
cast aside, the reader finds, in secret within, the sweeter kernel
of truth? Sometimes poets combine historical events and imaginative
fancies, as it were in a splendid structure, to the end that from
the harmonious joining of diversities a finer picture of the story
may result. But yet, when the great body of the gods is spoken
of by the poets idly and vainly, or the very deities are said
to have stealthily withdrawn their hands from the chastening rods
of Venus, there dawns the shadow of untruth, nor in such matter
is the poet found varying from his peculiar quality. For surely,
when the dreams of Epicurus are put to sleep, the madness of Manichaeus
cured, the intricacies of Aristotle argued out, the fallacies
of Arius refuted. reason then proves the sole unity of God, the
universe declares it, faith believes it, Scripture attests it.
In Him is no spot found, Him no evil fault attacks, with Him no
tempting passion abides. Here is splendor never failing, life
untiring and immortal, a fountain always springing, a fruitful
conservatory of being, the great source of wisdom, the primal
origin of goodness Then what of it if many, as in the case of
the poets, have distorted the ultimate categories of love for
purposes of literature ? The view either that there are gods,
or that they wanton at the sports of love is false [1] reme and darkens to depths of extreme falsehood.'
Over that I have drawn the cloud of silence, but the other I have
unfolded in the light of a true explanation.'
At this I said:
I Now I see, mother, that my question savors of a most childlike
ignorance. Still, if another very small inquiry, which promises
at least a certain worth, may dare to appear in thy hearing for
consideration, my wish would be to question thee of a certain
matter, not merely in query but in lament.'
To these words she replied:
Have I not before this extended to thee free reins to ask without
any hindrance or restraint by me?' I marvel " then I said,
wherefore certain parts of thy tunic, which should be like the
connection of marriage, suffer division in that part of their
texture where the fancies of art give the image of man.'
'Now from what we have touched on previously,' she answered, I
thou canst deduce what the figured gap and rent mystically show.
For since, as we have said before, many men have taken arms against
their mother in evil and violence, they thereupon, in fixing between
them and her a vast gulf of dissension, Lay me the hands of outrage,
and themselves tear apart my garments piece by piece, and, as
in them, force me, stripped of dress, whom they ought to clothe
with reverential honor, to come to shame .like a harlot. This
tunic, then, is made with this rent, since by the unlawful assaults
of man alone the garments of my modesty suffer disgrace and division.'
Then said I:
Now the stream of my doubts is calmed by the
I Omitting quae with Migne.
light of thine explanations, and grants my mind a rest from disquiet.
But should it commend itself to thy favor, I would eagerly strive
to learn what irrational reason, what indiscreet discretion,
what- misguided affection, has so forced man's little spark of
reason to slumber, that, he, drunk, with the Lethean cup, of sensuality,
not only has become an apostate from thy laws, but also unrighteously
rebels against them.'
Then she answered:
'If thy wish is to learn the seeding and origin of this evil,
thou shouldst rouse the flame of higher thought, and creep on
to seek with a more eager desire for understanding. Let keenness
expel the intellect's stupidity, let constancy of attention check
flooding thoughts. For as I make my beginning in a loftier and
nobler style, and desire to weave the line of my story, I do not
wish as before to explain my principles on a dead level of words,
nor yet to pollute unholy subjects with new profanities of speech,
but rather to gild with the olden ornaments of chaste words matters
of shame, and to deck them in the various colors of beautiful
expression. For it is fitting to purple the dross of the aforesaid
vices with glowing phrase, to perfume the foulness of evil with
the odor of sweet words, in order that the stench of such great
filth may not go abroad far upon the winds, and bring many to
indignation and loathing disgust. Sometimes, no doubt, as we have
touched on hitherto, since speech should be related to the matters
of which we speak, deformity of expression ought to be molded
I to ugliness of subject. But in the coming theme, in order that
evil words may not offend the readers' hearing, nor establish
an abode in the mouth of a virgin, wish to give to these monstrous
vices a cloak of well-sounding phrases.'
'Now the hunger of my intellect,' I said, 'the sharpness of my
burning desire, the ardor of my fervent spirit, the constancy
of my heightened and firm attention, request the things which
thou promisest.'
Then said she:
'When God wished to bring the creation of His worldly palace out
from the spiritual abode of His inner preconception into external
mold, and to express, as in a material word and by its real existence,
the mental word which He had conceived from the everlasting foundation
of the universe, like a splendid world's architect, like a goldsmith
working in gold, like the skilful artisan of a stupendous production,
like the industrious workman of a wonderful work, He fashioned
the marvelous form of His earthly palace, not with the laborious
assistance of an exterior agency, nor by the help of material
lying there at hand, nor because of any base need, but by the
power of His sole independent will. Then God added to this worldly
palace various kinds of things, and these, though separated by
the strife of different natures, He governed with harmony of proper
order, furnished with laws and bound with ordinances. And thus
He united with mutual and fraternal kisses things antagonistic
from the opposition of their properties, between which the space
had made its room from contraries, and He changed the strife of
hatred into the peace of friendship. All things, then, agreeing
through invisible bonds of union, plurality returned to unity,
diversity to identity, dissonance to harmony, discord to concord
in peaceful agreement. But after the universal Maker had clothed
all things with the forms for their natures, and had wedded them
in marriage with portions suitable to them individually, then,
wishing that by the round of mutual relation of birth and death there
should to perishable things be given stability through instability,
infinity through impermanence, eternity through transientness,
and that a series of things should be continually woven together
in unbroken reciprocation of birth, He decreed that similar things,
stamped with the seal of clear confirmity, be brought from their
like along the lawful path of sure descent. Me, then, He appointed
a sort of deputy, a coiner for stamping the orders of things,
for the purpose that I should form their figures on the proper
anvils, and should not let the shape vary from the shape of the
anvil, and that through my activity and skill the face of the
copy should not be changed by additions of any other elements
from the face of the original. Accordingly, obeying the command
of the Ruler, in my work I stamp, so to speak, the various coins
[1] of things in the image of the original, exemplifying the figure
of the example, harmoniously forming like from like, and have
produced the distinctive appearances of individual things. Yet
beneath the mysterious, divine majesty, I have so performed this
work and service that the right hand of spiritual power should
direct my hand in its application, since the pen of my composition
would stray in sudden error, should it not be guided by the supreme
Supporter. Without the help, however, of an assisting worker,
I could not perfect so many classes of things. Therefore, since
it pleased me to sojourn in the grateful palace of the eternal
region, where no blast of wind destroys the peace of pure serenity,
where no dropping night of clouds buries the untired day of open
heaven, where no violence of tempest rages, where no rioter's
madness impends in thunder, in the
1. Reading numismata, with R.
outskirt world I stationed Venus who is skilled in the knowledge
of making, as under-deputy of my work, in order that she, under
my judgment and guidance, and with the assisting activity of her
husband Hymen and her son Cupid, by laboring at the various formation
of the living things of earth, and regularly applying their productive
hammers to their anvils, might weave together the line of the
human race in unwearied continuation, to the end that it should
not suffer violent sundering at the hands of the Fates.'
While, in the progress of this narrative, mention was being made
of Cupid, I slipped a question of the following tenor into an
interruption, with which I had broken in, saying:
`Stay! stay! Did I not fear to incur disfavor from thy kindness
by rude division of thy speech, and by the burden of my questions,
I would desire to know, from thy discernment and by thy delineation,
the' nature of Cupid, on whom thy speech has touched before with
some slight mention. For though various authors have pictured
his nature under the covering wrap of allegory, they have yet
left us no marks of certainty. And his authority over the human
race is seen from experience to be so powerful that no one, whether
marked with the seal of nobility, or clothed in the beauty of
exceptional wisdom, or fortified with the armor of courage, or
robed in the garment of loveliness, or honored with distinctions
of other graces, can except himself from the comprehensiveness
of the power of love.'
Then she, slowly shaking her head, said in words foretelling rebuke:
'I believe that thou art serving as a paid soldier in the camp
of Cupid, and art connected with him by some relationship and
close intimacy. For thou dost eagerly try to explore his tangled maze, though thou oughtest
rather to be applying thy mind's attention the more closely to
my discourser rich in treasures of thought. But nevertheless,
before it advances into the course of my further speech, since
I sympathize with the weakness of thy humanity, I am obliged to
dispel, as far as in my small ability lies, the shadows of thine
ignorance. Besides I am bound to the solving of thy problems by
solemn obligation and promise. So, either through describing with
faithful description, or defining with correct definition, a matter
that is non-demonstrable I shall demonstrate, one that is inextricable
I shall untangle, albeit this, which is not bound in obedience
by connections with any substance, and does not desire the scrutiny
of the intellect, cannot be stamped with mark or any description.
Then let there be given this representation of the subject, as
I have determined it, let this issue as the explanation of a nature
inexplicable, let this be the conception of a subject unknown
this theory be given of a matter not ascertainable and yet, withal,
in chastened and lofty style:
METRE V.
Pax odio, fraudique fides, spes juncla timori.
Love is peace joined with hatred, faith with fraud, hope with
fear, and fury mixed with reason, pleasant shipwreck, light heaviness,,
welcome Charybdis, healthy sickness, satisfied [1] hunger, famished
satiety, s drunken thirst, deceptive delight, glad sorrow, joy
full of pains, sweet evil, evil sweetness, pleasure bitter to
itself, whose scent is savory, whose savor is taste
1. Reading et satiata, with Migne.
less, grateful tempest, clear night, shadowy day, living death,
dying life, agreeable misfortune, sinful forgiveness, pardonable
sin, laughable punishment, holy iniquity, nay, even delightful
crime, unstable play, fixed delusion, [1] weak vigor, changeable
firmness, mover of things established, undiscerning reason, mad
prudence, sad prosperity, tearful laughter, sick repose, soothing
hell, sorrowful paradise, pleasant prison, vernal winter, wintry
spring, calamity, bold moth of the mind, which the purple of the
king feels, and which does not pass by the toga of a beggar. Does
not Cupid, working many miracles by changing things into their
opposites, transform the whole race of men? When the monk and
the adulterer have both been foreign to a man, he yet compels
these [2]' two to possess and dwell in him at the same time. While
his madness rages, Scylla lays aside her fur , the good Eneas
begins to be a Nero, Paris lightens with his sword, Tydeus -s
is gentle in love, Nestor becomes young and Melicerta old, Thersites
begs Paris for his beauty, Davus begs Adonis and into Davus goes
all of Adonis, rich Crassus is in want and Codrus has abundance
in poverty, Bavius produces poetry, the muse of Maro is dull,
Ennius is eloquent, Marcus is silent, Ulysses becomes foolish,
Ajax in his folly is wise. He who in time past saw through the
stratagem of Antaeus and vanquished him, is vanquished by this
prodigy, which subdues all others. If this madness infect a woman's
mind, she runs into any conceivable crime, and beyond; the daughter
treacherously kills her father, the sister her brother, the wife
her husband, anticipating the hand of fate. And thus in the evil
progression she hews her husband's body, and with stealthy sword
1 Alain plays on the words - instabilis ludus, stabilis delusio.
2.Reading haec, with B.
severs his head. Even the mother is forced not to know the name
of parent, and, while she is giving birth, gives birth also to
lies. The son is horrorstricken to find in his mother a stepmother,
in faith deceit, in piety guile. Thus in Medea two names fight
equally, for at one time she desires to be both mother and stepmother.
The sister knows not her station or how to keep herself a sister,
when Byblis has become too far a friend of Caunus. So also Myrrha,
too subject to her sire, was a parent with her progenitor, and
a mother with her father. But why should I tell more ? Under the
spear of Cupid must each lover go, and pay him his dues. He wages
war against all; his rule excepts hardly a one; he smites all
things with the anger of his lightning, and against him neither
probity nor prudence will be of effect, nor beauty of form, nor
abundance of riches, nor the height of nobility. Thefts, lies,
fear,[1] anger, fury, deceit, violence, error, sadness poetry
is strange dominions. Here a on, moderation to be unrestrained,
faith to have no faith. Displaying the sweet, he adds the bitter,
instils poison, and finishes best things with an evil end. Attracting
he seduces, laughing he jeers, with smarting ointment he anoints,
laying hold he corrupts, loving he hates. Yet thou canst thyself
bridle that madness, if thou fleest-no stronger medicine is given.
If thou wouldst escape Love, shun his places, his times; both
place and time give him nourishment. If thou followest him, he
attends ; by fleeing, he is put to flight; if thou retreatest,
he retires; if thou fleest, he flies.
1. Reading metus, with B.
PROSE V.
Jam ex hoc mea doctrine artificio.
Now the theory of the art of love has appeared clearly to thee
from my skillful presentation, and through the book of experience
thou wilt be able to acquire for thyself its practice. And it
is not strange if in this portrayal of Cupid I intersperse slight
signs of blame, although he is allied to me by the connection
of own blood-relationship. Disparaging malice, 'with its deep
rust, did not drive me to these upbraiding and reproving censures,
nor the intensity of burning hate breaking forth from within,
nor the tyrant of jealousy raging furiously without, but the fear
lest I should seem to strangle, clear and eloquent truth by silence.
I do not deny honorableness to the essential nature of love if
it is checked by the bridle of moderation if it is restrained
by the reins of sobriety, if it does not transgress the determined
boundaries of the dual activity, or its heat boil to too great
a degree. But if its spark shoots into a flame, or its little
spring rises to a torrent, the rankness of the growth demands
the pruning-knife, and the swelling and excess requires an assuaging
medicine; for all excess disturbs the progress of well-regulated
temperance, and the pride of unhealthy extravagance fattens, so
to speak, into imposthumes of vices'
The former poetical discourse, then, which strayed into playful
jest, is set before thee as a treat for thy childishness. Now
let the style, which had slightly wandered toward the boyish and
light verses of thv youth, return to the ordered theme of the
narration previously planned. As I showed in touching on the subject before, I appointed Venus to build up a progeny from the
living creatures of earth, that in her work of producing things
she might shape in the rough various materials, and lay them before
me. But I, in the manifold formation of their natures, was to
add the execution of the final and polishing hand. And in order
that faithful tools might exclude the confusion of poor work,
I have assigned to her two lawful hammers, by which she may bring
the stratagems of the Fates to naught, and present to view the
multiform subjects of existence. Also I appointed for her work
anvils, noble instruments, with a command that she should apply
these same hammers to them, and faithfully give herself up to
the forming of things, not permitting the hammers to leave their
proper work, and become strangers to the anvils.f For the office
of writing I provided her [1] with an especially potent reed-pen,
in order that, on suitable leaves desiring the writing of this
pen (in the benefit of my gift of which leaves she had been made
a sharer), she might, according to the rule of my orthography,
trace the natures of things, and might not suffer the pen to stray
in the least measure possible from the path of proper description
into the by-track of false writing. But since for the production
of progeny the rule of marital coition, with its lawful embraces
was to connect things unlike in their opposition of sexes, I,
to the end that in her connections she should observe the orthodox
constructions of grammatical art, and that the nobility of her
work should not mar its glory by ignorance of any branch of knowledge,
taught her, as a pupil worthy to be 6s taught, by friendly precepts
under my guiding discipline, what rules of the grammatical art
she should
1. Reading eidem, with Migne.
admit in her skilful connections and constructions, and what she
should exclude as irregular and not redeemed b any justifying
figure. For although natural reason recognizes, as grammar corroborates,
two genders specially, namely masculine and feminine-albeit some
men, deprived of the sign of sex, can be thought of in my opinion
by the designation of neuter-yet I enjoined Cypris, with the most
friendly admonitions, and under the most powerful thunder of
threats, to solemnize in her connections as reason demands, only
the natural union of the masculine with the feminine gender. For,
since according to the demand of nuptial custom the masculine
gender takes to itself its feminine gender, if the joining of
these genders should be celebrated irregularly, so that members
of the same sex should be connected with each other, that construction
would not earn pardon from me, either by the help of evocation
or by the aid of conception. For if the masculine gender by some
violent and reasonless reasoning should demand a like gender,
the relation of that connection could not justify its vice by
any beauty of figure, but would be disgraced as an inexcusable
and monstrous solecism.
Furthermore, my command enjoined Cypris that, in her constructions,
she have regard to the ordinary rules for nouns and adjectives,
and that she appoint that organ which is especially marked with
the peculiarity of the feminine sex to the office of noun, and
that she should put that organ characterized y the signs of the
masculine sex in the seat of the adjective. Thus should it be
that neither the adjective should be able to fall into the place
of the noun, nor should the noun remove into the region of the
adjective. And since each is influenced by the other, by the laws of necessity the adjective is attracted according
to its modifying quality, and the noun as is proper in a thing
retentive of substantive nature. Besides this, I added that the
Dionean conjugation should not admit into its uniform use of transitive
construction either a defective use, or the circuity of reflexiveness,
or the excess of double conjugation-it being rather contented
with the direct course of single conjugation-nor should suffer
by the irruption of any wandering influence to such degree that
the active voice should become able by a usurping assumption to
cross over into the passive, or the latter by an abandonment of
its peculiar nature to turn into the active, or, retaining under
the letters of the passive the nature of the active, to assume
the law of the deponent. Nor is it strange if many conjugations,
characterized by the mark of fullest grammatical strength, suffer
repulse from the dwelling of the art of Venus; for though she
admits into the bosom of her friendship those which follow her
rules and direction, yet those which in the boasting of a most
eloquent contradiction [1] try to overthrow her laws, she suspends
in the exclusion of an eternal anathema.
The voice of controversial logic, moreover, will acknowledge that
very many powerful connections draw upon divers stores of strength-though
there are some which have no freedom to go beyond their own stations
and restraints. And since I knew that Venus was entering into
conflict and sharp argument against the active opposition of the
Fates, I gave [2] her, according to the maxims of controversial
learning, and to the end that she should not fall into the closing
trap Of a conclusion at the hands of Atropos through any
1. Reading contradictionis, with B.
2 Emending to docebam.
deceiving trick, [1] instruction that she transcend the formal
limits of her own arguments, and that she find the lurking-place
of false deceit in those of her opponents. So might she the more
safely carry on the contest and dispute against the wiles of the
adversary, and by her earnestness refute the false arguments [2]
of her opponents. Moreover, I added that a syllogistic conclusion
in the due order of three propositions should be arranged, but
that it should be content with an abridgment to two terms, following
none of the Aristotelian figures; being of such sort that in every
proposition the major extreme should perform the office of the
predicate, and the minor should be the subject, and be bound by
its laws. In the first proposition the predicate should cling
to the subject, not in the manner of true inherence, but simply
by the way of external connection, as with a term predicated from
a term. In the minor proposition the major term should be joined
to the minor more closely by the reciprocal pressure of the kisses
of relation. But in the conclusion there should be celebrated,
in the truer bond of closest inherence, the fleshly connection
of subject [3] and predicate. It was also part of my plan that
the terms in the conclusion of love should not, by any pernicious
and retrograding conversion, following the laws of predication
by analogy, change their places and stations. And to the end that
no false consequent, born from terms like and equal, should be
able to hinder the work of Venus, I distinguished the terms with
special marks, that she might plainly recognize with familiar
insight and easy perception what term, from the law of their
1. Reading fallaciae,, with Migne.
2 Reading argumenta, with B. and Migne.
3 Reading subjecti, with B. and Migne.
nature, the more humble step of the subject demands, and what
the loftier summit of the predicate ; for so, if a conclusion
should inconsequently have its terms ont of right relation, there
should not still arise complete deformity and continual folly.
Furthermore, just as it has been my purpose to attack with bitter
hostility [1] certain practices of grammar and logic, and exclude
them from the schools of Venus, so 'I have forbidden to the arts
of Cypris those metonymic uses of rhetoricians which Mother Rhetoric
embraces in her wide bosom, and inspires as her speech with many
graces; for I feared lest if, in the pursuit of too strained a
metaphor, she should change the predicate from its protesting
subject into something wholly foreign, cleverness would be too
far [2] converted into a blemish, refinement into grossness, fancy
into a fault, ornament into a gaudy show.
With these distinctive marks of splendor and nobility, the earthly
presence of Venus came into thy native sphere. Most energetically
she labored with the aid of her instruments in weaving the series
of human birth, mending with a slender needle those parts that
had been sundered by the hands of the Fates, and more subtly still
joining these one to another. And thus did she once, with the
most obedient care, perform to me the dues of her tributary administration.
But [3] since the soul, when glutted from its birth with a satiety
of the same thing [4] comes to loathe it, and its desire to accomplish
is extinguished by attack on the daily labor, the uniform character
of the work so many times repeated tired [5] and disgusted Cytherea,
[6] and the effect of continued labor
1 Reading incursu, with B. and Migne.
2 Reading nimis, with B.
3. Reading sed, with B. and Migne.
4. Reading identitate, with Migne.
5. Reading infestavit, with Migne.
6. Reading Cytheream, with B. and Migne.
took away the wish to perform. She, then, wishing rather to be
pampered in unfruitful love than to be exercised in fruitful labors,
though she had been entrusted, as related, with the busy work
of a festal activity, began to be young and childish over the
joys of extreme idleness. Now with whom sluggish inactivity has
gained a stronghold, by him all service of virtue is rejected,
and the unproductiveness of sloth is wont to form its abundance
of misshapen offspring; draining a flood of drink, he wantons
in excessive licentiousness, and his unrestrained gormandizing
of food throws back like vomit from its surfeit. Venus stung by
these fatal passions, began as a concubine , defiling the chastity
of her marriage-bed [1] in the polluting sin of adultery against
her husband Hymen, to commit fornication with Antigamus. Enmeshed
in the ruin-bringing suggestions of her adulterer, she has unreasonably
changed a spontaneous work into a mechanical, a normal into an
abnormal, a refined into a gross, and, corrupting my precept taught
her, has denied the hammers the association of their proper anvils,
and condemned them to the adulterous anvils. Moreover, the natural
anvils bewail the absence of their hammers, and are seen sadly
to demand them. And she who was wont to hold out the shield of
defense to that sword of Atropos which severs all things, now
has become bound to the latter in a mutual alliance on firm consideration,
and permits the sickle of fate to run out far into the grain of
the human race, and does not repair the loss [2] with renewed
[3] birth from any fresh seed. But rather, destroy-
1. Reading tori castitatem pests adulterationis incestans, with Migne.
2. Placing a comma before damnum, and omitting the one
after it, with Migne.
3. Reading rediviva, with B.
ing herself in grammatical constructions, and perverting herself
in dialectical conversions, she changes her art by the gaudy ornaments
of rhetoric into artifice, and her artifice into viciousness.
While in her wild fornication she was continuing the illicit actions
of concubinage with the adulterer, she conceived offspring from
him, and became the parent of a bastard for a son. Though this
latter does not rejoice in any pleasure or delight, or wish to
bask in any of the joys of mirth, yet she, to the end that he
might be called. as by antiphrasis, Mirth, in the absence of mirth,
placed the name of that disposition upon him. To Dione, then,
were given two sons, divided by differences in kind unlike by
law of their birth, dissimilar in the marks of their qualities,
ill-agreeing in the variance of their occupation. For Hymen, who
is related to me by the bond of brotherhood from the same mother,
and whom a stock of excellent worth produced, begot to himself
from Venus a son Cupid. But Antigamus, scurrilous and descended
from a race of ignobility, by his adultery with Venus has lightly
become the father of an illegitimate son, Mirth. A solemn marriage
accounts for the birth of the former; a low and notorious concubinage
denounces the descent of the latter. In the former [1] shines
glooms his father's culture and courtesy; in the latter [2] the
grossness of his father's brutality. The former dwells by gleaming
springs, silvery in white splendors; the latter continually frequents
places cursed with perennial barrenness. The latter pitches his
tent on the desert plain; the former is pleased with the wooded
valley. The latter without cease spends the night in taverns;
the former continues days and nights under
1. Reading illo, with Migne.
2. Emending illo to isto.
the clear sky. The former [1] wounds those whom he pursues with
golden hunting-spears; the latter [2] lances those whom he strikes
with iron javelins. The former [3] intoxicates his guests with
a nectar not bitter; the latter [4] ruins with the sour drink
of absinthe.
Now my discourse has traced on the chart of thy mind the manner
in which the ruinous evil of idleness has produced inordinate
love; how the excess and deluge of drink has brought to pass love's
raging lust; how, taking its rise in gluttony, the ivory-white
leprosy of licentiousness has destroyed great numbers. Up to this
point I have sung a sorrowful song of suffering and lament over
those lying sick with the acute fever of sensual passion. Now
as to the rest, whom the unhealthy rout of other vices confounds,
let us tune the cithara of our complaint to the manner of elegiac
song. For many, while they shun and avoid the abysmal mouths of
greedy Charybdis, yet are miserably shipwrecked by unthought peril
in the depths of black Scylla. And very many, while they escape
the ruinous rush of the vehement flood, become stuck in the greedy
slime of the sluggish fen. Others, while they avoid with care
and caution the precipices of the steep mountain, dash themselves
together on the level plain by their own headlong haste. Such
matters, then, as I cast into thy mind, fasten there by the nail
of retentive memory, and by watchfulness of soul shake off slothful
sleep, so that, stirred by my maternal feelings, thou mayest sympathize
and condole over the ruin of desperate men, and, armed with the
shield of early admonition, meet the monstrous force of vices,
and, if any herb of base seed dare to sprout in the
1. Emending iste to ille.
2. Emending ille to iste.
3. Emending iste to ille.
4. Emending ille to iste.
garden of thy mind, mayest cut it and root it out with a timely
sickle.'
Then said I :
'Now long since my mind has rejoiced in the profit of thy teaching,
and inclined a most willing ear to thy censures.'
METRE VI.
Heu! quam praecipitem passa ruinam.
'Alas!' she said suffering what headlong ruin does virtue labor,
lying conquered under vice! All the beauty of virtue is banished;
the bridles of madness are loosed for evil ; the day of justice
fades; hardly the shadow of its shadow is left surviving; lacking
light, abounding in night, it bewails the extinguished star of
its glory. While the lurid lightning of crime blasts the world,
the darkness of guile clouds the planet [1] of faith, and no stars
of the virtues redeem the abyss of that darkness. The evening
of faith lies upon the world, and the night of the chaos of falsehood
is everywhere. Faith sickens with fraud; fraud, too, deceives
itself by fraud, and thus guile is upon the heels of guile. In
the sphere of conduct, morals lack morality; laws lack law; justice
loses the righteousness of its course. For all justice is executed
without justice, and law flourishes without law. The world grows
worse, and now its golden age departs. The poverty of iron clothes
it; of old the glory of gold invested it. Now guile does not seek
the robe of hypocrisy, nor does the foul odor of vice look for
the balsams of the virtues to furnish a mantle for its stench.
The nettle, indeed, does [2] cloak its pov-
1. Reading astrum, with B.
2. Reading Sic urtica, with Migne.
erty with roses, sea-weed with hyacinths, dross with silver, rouge-paint
with a true glow, that thus, for a time,as appearance may make
amends for evil. But crime puts off all ornaments, nor colors
itself with the light of justice. For vice strips itself openly;
falsehood becomes the tongue of its own madness. What safety remains
when guile arms the very mothers against their own bowels, when
brotherly love labors in untruth, when the right hand lies to
its sister? The law of goodness-to esteem good men-is considered
false, and the law of piety is impiety, and to be pure is to all
a cause of disgrace. Without shame inhuman man repudiates the
proper practices of humanity. Then, degenerate, he takes up the
base actions of a brute. and thus, worthy to be unmanned, forsakes
his manhood.'
PROSE VI.
Ad hoc ego: Quoniam in area generalitatis.
At this I pursued:
`Since my furthest knowledge wanders astray in this general field,
and since particularity has been made a friend of the intellect,
I wish that thou wouldest unfold, with variously colored and brilliant
figures interspersed, the evils which thou impliest in this small
round of a general statement.'
`Since it is unfitting' she replied, `to deprive thy proper and
meritorious request of its reward and satisfaction, it is right
that the separate evils be pointed out to thee distinctively by
individual signs. Inasmuch, then, as it has been told how the
whole world is endangered by the almost universal fire of impure
love, there now remains to be shown how it is ship-wrecked on the most universal flood of intemperance. Seeing that
intemperance is a sort of preface to the performance and excitement
of love, and antecedent to the amorous consequent, note that certain
daughters of the old Idololatria, who was in time past completely
crushed, make the attempt to renew the power of their mother in
the immediate present, and, by certain magic songs, to revive
her from the dead. In their meretricious employment they brighten
their appearance with the countenance of deceiving delight, and
fraudulently lure on their lovers. Also with sad joy, with friendly
cruelty, with hostile friendship, like sirens they sweetly bear
on their lips the melody of pleasure, even into destruction itself,
leading on their lovers through to the shipwreck of idolatry.
One of them, to speak by a fictitious name, can be called by
the fit appellation Bacchilatria. This Bacchilatria, who steals
the spark of reason from her lover, and exposes him to the darkness
of brutish sensuality, after the manner of a harlot so intoxicates
him that he is forced to desire wine beyond measure; so much indeed,
that the drinker, in being bound to Bacchus by the chain of intemperate
enjoyment, is thought to exhibit the majesty of his cult. Therefore
the man Bacchilatra very frequently prefers that Bacchus-like
relics of his own shrine-should not be separated from him by interval
in space, and does not allow his god to delay too long in the
walls of alien vessels; but that the divinity of the god may assist
him the more intimately, he shuts him up in the jar of his own
belly. But because most often the vessel of the stomach can not
bear the divinity of so great a guest, the same god disgracefully
goes off in liquid either through the arctic pole of the eastern
door, or through the antarctic pole of the western region. Many times, also, the worshiper of Bacchus designs a guest-chamber
for him in the cups of goblets of very precious material, in order
that his clear deity may shine out the more divinely in a vessel
of gold. Thence this same goblet, which rivals the glories of
the ether in its brightness, and strives with the green light
of the emerald in its freshness, and far surpasses most savors
in the excellence of its savor, incites the sons of drinking by
its falsely divine qualities, so that they honor wine with ineffable
love, as if it were the mystery of an - unutterable godship. And,
then, that nothing of the god remain undrained, they pierce through
Bacchus to the very dregs, and so force their god ignobly to descend
to the Tartarean depth of the belly. Thus, while they drop to
the most general class of drinking, they rise to the superlative
degree of drunkenness.
This evil not only is made an enemy to men of plebeian stock,
but even causes the haughty necks of prelates to bend. And they
to whom those delights of Bacchus, which the favor of nature has
showered upon him, are not sufficient, though they usurp the attractions
of learning, swallow also, in the voracious Charybdis of their
gullet, Bacchus now rejoicing in a marriage with roses, now exhaling
fragrance from various flowers, now claiming distinction from
association with hyssop, now enriched externally with other gifts.
And to such a degree, indeed, is this true that with no sea they
suffer the shipwreck of drunkenness, without sorrow its sadness,
without infirmity its sickness, without an opiate its sleep. Those
who, fired with drunken energy, employ their time in hymns, break
in on the verses with unnecessary interjection, and rudely let
in the tempest of inebriation.
Not only the aforementioned passion for drink, but also a canine
greediness for eating, entices very many. The abnormal desires
of such, and their gross thoughts, dream of preparations of food.
While they pay too fully their due of food to the daily tax-collector,
he, more than loaded, has to pay back his debtor. They prize whatever
they hold in the coffer of the stomach, and although neither rust
can consume that trust with the tooth of corrosion, nor the guile
of the stealthy thief snatch it away, nevertheless it vanishes
more ignobly in the baser robbery of digestive heat. That they
may more carefully fawn upon this tax collecting stomach, they
urge the purse to disgorge its treasure, the coffer to vomit its
coins. Though within they enrich the belly with wealth of foods,
without they are situated in sheer, naked, and lonely poverty.
Now this pestilence, not contented with plebeian humility, extends
itself quite deeply among prelates. These, degrading the office
of baptism, baptize in the base font of spice salmon, pike, and
other fish which are exceptional in equal excellence, and have
been crucified in various martyrdoms of cookery, to the end that,
by coming from such a baptism, they may acquire a varied and agreeable
savor. Furthermore, on the same table the beast of the earth is
drowned in the flood of spice, the fish swims in it, the bird
is . limed in its paste. And while so many species of animals
are confined in the single prison-house of a belly, the creature
of the sea wonders that the tribes that go on foot and the tribes
of the air are buried With it in the same sepulchre. If freedom
to go out is given them, the width of the door hardly suffices
for their egress.
These evils form the bridge over which the brothels of licentiousness
are reached. They are the preliminaries through which one enters into the art of stealing. They
are the source of diseases. They beget poverty. They are the nurses
of discord, [1] the sisters of madness, the mothers of excess,
the seekers after impurity. Because of them humanity transgresses
the limits of modesty, disregards the restraints of temperance,
breaks to pieces the seals of chastity, pays no heed to the graciousness
of my bounty. For though my liberality distributes to men so many
dishes of food, and rains upon them such flowing cups, yet they,
ungrateful for my favors, misusing lawful things in ways beyond
all measure of law, and loosening the bridles of the throat, at
the same time overstep the limits of eating and extend the lines
of drinking indefinitely. They who seduce their palates with the
tang of salts, that they may drink much and often, are still
more often made to thirst.
There is also another daughter of Idololatria, whom, if characteristic
name is to have similarity in its sound to her real nature, it
is fitting to call with apt word Nummulatria. She is Avarice,
through whose influence money is deified in men's minds, and the
dignity of divine worship is extended to a coin. Through her influence,
also, when a coin speaks, the trump of Ciceronian eloquence is
hoarse; when a coin goes to war, the lightnings of Hector's warfare
cease; when money battles, the strength of Hercules is subdued.
For if one is armed with money as with a silver breastplate, the
rush of the Ciceronian torrent, the splendor of the onset of Hector,
the might and bravery of Hercules, the cunning craft of Ulysses,
count only for light trifles. For to such a degree has the hunger
for possession burned that subtle dialectics are silent, the culture
of rhetoric languishes. When
1.Omitting vel desidiae, with B. and Migne.
abundance of wealth makes the final plea, Cicero sells the riches
of his eloquence, Lucretia changes the necklace of her chastity
into the price of gold, Penelope resigns the purity and virtue
of twenty years to a price. and Hippolytus, if he hear the petitions
of the whispering coin, is not willing to treat sternly the entreaties
of his stepmother. If money murmurs at the ear of an umpire, the
lyre of Orpheus, the song of Amphion, the muse of Virgil, are
smothered by its voice. Now the rich man, shipwrecked in the deep
of wealth, thinks after money with the fires of dropsical thirst,
and is set like a Tantalus in its midst. And the poor man, though
he is not able really to practice actual avarice, yet within preserves
a spiritual parsimony. O shame! Mass of metal secures honor,
which is considered in proportion to the metal's weight. Not Caesar
now, but money, is all; for [1] like a mediator it runs through
the honors one by one, from the smallest to those of the widest
scope. Our patriarch now is money; for it sets some on the supreme
throne of an archbishopric, raises others to the honor of a bishop's
eminence, fits others for archidiaconal offices, makes others
equal to employments in other positions of dignity. What further?
Money conquers, money reigns, money commands all. What profits
it in the chariot of Ptolomean subtlety to follow elusive astronomy
in its swift flight, the prophecies of the stars, to track the
free wanderings of the planets; with Euclid to search the inner
secrets of the puzzles of geometry, with the intellect to descend
into the depths of the sea, to touch the height of heaven by measurements
that can be comprehended; with the Milesian to find the harmonious
combinations of musical chords; with Pythagoras to examine the
1. Reading quia, with Migne.
rivalry of numbers in the strength of their multiplication ; with
Cicero to star oratory with the brilliant constellations of rhetoric;
with Aristotle to separate with the two-handed sword of logic
the untrue from the true; with Zeno to clothe falsehood in deceptive
probability; with Donatus to join the parts of speech in the tones
of agreement-since wisdom in our times is rewarded with no pay
or profit, no favorable breeze of fame lifts it aloft, and money
itself buys the commendations of praise, the titles of honor ?
But wisdom alone surpasses every possession. Though this noble
property be scattered abroad, it reunites; though spent, it returns;
though confiscated, it gains an increase. Through it the splendid
treasure of science is produced in the mysterious secret places
of the mind, and the enjoyment of internal delight is acquired.
It is the sun from which the mind becomes like day in the midst
of shadows ; it is the eye of the heart, the rapturous paradise
of the spirit. It turns the earthly into the heavenly by the power
of godlike change, the perishable into the immortal, man into
God. It is the true cure for error, the only solace for human
misfortune, alone the morning-star of the night of humanity, the
special redemption from thy misery. No fog of the air blurs its
keenness, the thickness of earth does not bar its working, nor
depth of water dim its vision. Although among those who are like
brutes in bestial sensuality it sickens by reason of their gross
vice, yet among those who have raised the spark of reason into
its original fire it does not lack the favor of sounding fame.
For though wisdom despises flattering applause and unsubstantial.
adulation, yet since it is the glorious property of true fame
to scorn those who seek after it, and seek after those who Scorn
it, it attains fame by fleeing from it, which it would lose by following. Therefore, if among certain
men thou seest -money reigning, knowledge lying prostrate, wealth
militant, wisdom in exile, yet do thou with victorious spirit
throw down and trample under foot the ignoble hoards of riches,
and with the love of inner affection follow after knowledge; for
so thou wilt be able with unimpeded gaze to look further into
the resting-place of Mother Wisdom.'
Then said I:
'I could wish that, giving free rein to reproof, thou wouldest
attack the daughters of Avarice more fiercely.'
Then she, turning the course of her speech to severest censure
and invective, said:
METER VII.
Postquam sacra fames auri mortalia pungit.
'After the cursed hunger of gold pierces mortal breasts, the starved
mind of man knows not rest.[1] It dissolves friendships, begets
hate, incites anger, sows strife, nourishes dissension, lets loose
war breaks established bonds, stirs up sons against fathers,
mothers against their own bowels, brings it to pass that brothers
know not the togas of their brothers, and all those whom union
of blood unites one madness wickedly divides. While the passion
for having makes the stomach of the mind dropsical, the mind thirsts
as it drinks, and, like another Tantalus, burns in the very water,
and the abundance of wealth gives intensity to the thirst. So
the satiated man hungers, the drunken thirsts, the one with plenty
longs, the individual covets everything, and by that very covetousness
is made poor, and stays wealthy without, but
1. Reading manere, with Migne.
needy within. The wretch has nothing when he thinks that he has
nothing, since [1] his longings balance his riches with poverty.
Many enemies invade the lodging of the heart and the walls of
his greedy mind, and with great tumult disturb the whole stronghold
of the human breast. For fear marches upon the understanding,
and likewise covetousness shakes it, and loots the whole city
of the mind. Thus the avaricious wretch is agitated by a twofold
crowd of cares. And while he fears things worthy to be feared,
his mind itself often dreams new terrors and creates fear, and
suffers misfortune in the fear of misfortune, and considers adversity
and loss with utter consternation. Thus the dreams of terror picture
various 3calamities, and fright conjures up falsehood of wife
and knavery of thief and assault of enemy, and imagines swords
threatening the neck, and the dire thunderbolts of those in power.
Now it thinks on the evils of fire, now it conceives of the wrath
of the ocean, now it is shipwrecked on blank fear. The mind of
the rich man lingers over a coin, while he buries it in his chest,
and the buried coin becomes dead to the miser's use. Not he, but
the chest, possesses it, and claims the whole value of the money
for itself. That the coffer may serve him various dishes of coins,
the rich man inflicts the pangs of hunger on his own belly. The
belly dreads avarice, and cannot understand why it is denied its
proper revenues, and asks aid of the coffer, but the coffer turns
to it deaf ears. The vision has food, and the eye makes merry,
but, in solitude among silver, the belly is forced to meditate
and brood, and suffers hunger with far-reaching desire. Nor do
tears, nor the honey of prayers, nor poverty itself, plead so
that the rich man does not devour the
1. Reading cum, with Migne.
poor man for his gain, and pinch the wretch's little money-bag.
He laughs at the tears of the poor, and feasts on the toil of
the wretched, and makes their punishment his own repose. Grief
possesses the one, laughter the other; jest the one,. mourning
the other. The one groans, the other makes merry; the one grieves,
while the other ceases from grieving. All sympathy of the rich
and avaricious is lost in a desire for money ; for there is no
other pleasure allowed the mind which can turn the face elsewhere.
The rich man does not have riches, but is had by them. He is not
a possessor of money, but money possesses him, and the miser's
soul is buried among coins. These he cherishes as gods, on these
idols he lavishes the honor of divine worship, and ascribes godlike
powers to them. Thus the reason of man, trampled by covetousness,
serves the flesh, and like a handmaid is compelled to wait upon
it. Thus the eye of the heart sickens, blind from a fleshly mist,
and suffers its eclipse, to lead an inactive life in solitude.
Thus the shadow of the flesh basely covers the splendor of human
riches, and the glory of mind is made most inglorious. This manner
of speech does not decry riches nor rich men, but rather labors
to censure error. I do not condemn either possessions, or wealth,
or the utility of a rich man, if his conquering spirit, with reason
as its master, walks upon the wealth which it has cast below its
feet-if, in short, reason, like an able charioteer, shall direct
the application of riches. For though a rich man scatters his
whole wealth, showers presents, aspires to praise, and desires
to gain favor by bounty-yet if the author of this munificence,
the leader and director, is not reason, there will be no profit,
since gifts do not merit commendation, but rather buy it, unless
they be made becomingly and with discretion. For frequently the return for a gift is hypocritical
praise, a false pretense of fame, the ape of renown, a dull honor,
a shadow of approval.
PROSE VII.
Ecce habes quomodo tenacis avaritiae viscus.
There thou hast in what manner the tenacious lime of avarice deprives
the wings of the human mind of liberty. Now is to be examined
how the bombastic flatulence of insolent pride lifts the minds
of men into arrogance. Tainted by the fatal contagion of this
infirmity, a multitude of men, while they insolently exalt themselves
above themselves, descend in ruin beneath, detract from themselves
in their very arrogance, sink while they bear themselves aloft,
destroy themselves in their self-elevation. Either the solemn
pompousness of these men's words, or silence, the mother of suspicion,
or some peculiarity of act, or rude idiosyncrasy of gesture, or
excessive bedizening of the body, throws light upon the inner
haughtiness of mind. For some, whom lowliness of servile .condition
debases, boast of majestic liberty. Others, while they are of
common stock and plebeian race, in word at least make themselves
of distinction in excellence of blood. Others,while they cry in
the cradles of the grammatic art and are suckled at its breasts,
profess the height of Aristotelian subtlety. Others, though numb
with the ague-fits of a frightened hare, by the single remedy
of verbosity present the courageous front of a lion. There are
others who plainly reveal, by a silence merely external, what
the pride of inner indignation shuts close. For they disdain to
grant a share of mutual conversation to others, whether these lie in the lower walk of life, or resemble
themselves in equality of worth, or sway in more exalted eminence
and dignity. If one request a word from them, the reply is separated
from the question by such a great interval of silence that it
seem s unrelated to it by any tie. Others, who take pleasure in
individualizing their acts, try everywhere to be lonely in a crowd,
peculiar among the general, opposed to the universal, diverse
in the midst of unity. For while others engage in conversation,
they give themselves up to silence; while others relax in pleasures,
they are seen to be involved with serious matters; while others
are taken up with religious celebrations, they enjoy their ease
in wanton pleasures; while others are bright of face with joyous
humor, their countenances present a very tempest of malevolent
severity. Others with external peculiarity of deportment betoken
an inner demeanor of pride. These, as if they despised everything
earthy, with heads thrown back look up to the things of heaven,
indignantly turn aside their eyes, lift their eyebrows markedly,
turn up their chins superciliously, and holds their arms as stiff
as a bow; their feet graze the ground on tiptoe only. Others make
their bodies too effeminate by means of woman's attire. They quiet,
by the aid of a comb, the assembly of their hairs in such peace
that no breeze can raise a stir in them; by the help of scissors
they clip the fringes of the dense eyebrow, or pluck them up and
root them out from the over -full wood; they bring to bear on
the stripling beard the frequent treachery of the razor, that
it may not dare to sprout ever so little; their arms cry out
against the tightness of gloves, and their feet are imprisoned
in narrow shoes. Alas, whence this arrogance, this pride in men?
Their birth is fraught with sorrow, trouble and pain consume their life,
and the still more painful necessity of death ends even that pain.
With them being is a moment, life a shipwreck, the world a banishment.
Their life is either gone, or pledges itself to go; moreover death
is upon them, or threatens momently to arrive.
Now from Pride is born a daughter, who possesses by inheritance
the malevolence of her mother. She is Envy, and by the gnawing
rust of continual detraction she destroys the minds of men. She
is the worm because of whose bite health of mind sickens and falls
into disease, soundness of mind rots into decay, rest of mind
is abandoned for trouble. She is the guest who, after being lodged
in her host's guest-chamber, pulls down the hospitable shelter.
She is a possession which most evilly, nay dominatingly, possesses
its possessor; for while she troubles others with blatant obloquy,
she disturbs more deeply with intestine fang the spirit of her
possessor. She is Envy, who keeps the stings of her angry aspersions
at rest as against those whom a hell of faults devours, those
to whom the plan of nature denies the gifts of the body, those
whom mad fortune vomits into poverty. But if any one swims with
Croesus in the flood of riches, scatters wealth with Titus, disputes
over his image with Narcissus thunders with Turnus in courage,
rejoices with Hercules in strength, is drunken with the poetic
nectar go of Homer, with Plato examines philosophy face to face,
with Hippolytus is distinguished as the mirror of chastity -against
such a one she discharges all the stings [1] of her detractions.
For she attributes bravery to the wildness of fear, distorts prudence
into guile and fraud, or into bombastic flatulence. Under her
1. Reading aculeos, with Migne.
defamation also decency sinks into a gilded varnish of hypocrisy.
This disease of enviousness corrupts very many, who, while they
endeavor to mar the brightness of another's reputation, feel the
first disparagement of their own good character. Another's prosperity
is judged by them unfavorable, another's adversity favorable.
They are sad at another's joy, are joyous at another's sadness.
They measure their riches in another's poverty, and their own
poverty in another's riches. They try to darken another's shining
renown with a cloud of traducement, or to steal his glory by mere
silence. They spoil the pure [1] brightness of another's virtue,
or mix the ferment of falsehood with the true. O grief! What monster
more monstrous than envy? What evil more destructive? What fault
more to be condemned? What torment more full of punishment? It
is the gulf for erring blindness, the hell of the human mind,
the spur of contention, the sting of unrest. What are the emotions
of envy but the enemies of human peace, the attendants of mental
depredation, the hostile guard of a troubled spirit, the watch
over another's felicity? What does it profit any one if fortune
bright and favorable cheers him on, and his body rejoices in the
glow of beauty, and his mind is luminous with the splendor of
wisdom, when the robbery of livid envy plunders the riches of
the mind, turns the brightness of prosperous fortune into the
darkness of adversity, and debases the gold of beauty into foul
dross, and when ignoble spite makes the glory of wisdom inglorious?
Yet if one wishes to banish the rust of malice, the moth of envy
from the mind's treasure-house, let him find his grief in condoling
with another's woe, let him rejoice in another's joy as his own,
let him con
1. Reading puram, with B.
sider his riches in the riches of another, let him mourn his poverty
in the poverty of another. If thou shouldst see another's good
name honored and celebrated, do thou by no disparagement make
this festival of praise a common day, but let the lamp of the
other's virtue be brought before the whole company, and shine
forth the more fairly in the noonday of thy speech. If thou observest
any that are giving way to sharp depreciation of another's honors
and good fame, either withdraw thyself from the blatant herd,
or dull the slanderous tongues by reproof and correction. Bring
the brawling to naught, wear away the teeth of corrosion, consume
the biting scandal.
To this list of vices Flattery joins her share of evil. By this
pest and plague are smitten the adherents of chief men, palace
dogs, artisans of flattery, manufacturers of praise, molders of
falsehood. These are they who sound the grandiloquent trump of
commendation in the ears of the rich; who throw out the honey
of sweetest flattery; who, that they may cozen him out of gifts,
anoint the head of the rich man with the oil of adulation; who
offer lulling praises to the hearing of prelates; who either shake
from the coats of such men a fictitious dust, or pretend to pick
a feather off a featherless garment. By the beggarly means of
praise they buy employment from the rich, on which the favor of
fame spits indignantly. On gaining presents they laud, on acquiring
gifts they flatter, on the possession of reward they publish fairspoken
report. For if a torrent of generosity flashes in the gift of
a rich man, the flatterer is all poured out in the lavishness
of his encomiums. But if the gift savors of sluggish and wintry
avarice, the greedy sycophant grows cold in his praise and commendation
of it. If expression for the gift seems to require applauding drums, the poet of blandishment swells up in a grandiose
style of eulogy. But if the poverty of the gift begs plaudits
from fame, he lessens the report of its worth by a more humble
style; for it is when the size of the gift is eloquent that the
flatterer vomits from the treasury of his heart hypocritical praises,
insincere applause, easy perjuries. For though he whom the gift
represents have been whelmed by such a tempest of ugliness that
hardly the fragments of natural gifts are evident in him, yet
the poems of flattery will talk vainly to him of the prerogative
of beauty, will falsely say that the pygmean cells of his pusillanimous
heart are palaces, will exalt the base shadows of dull avarice
to the mountain-top of generosity, will feign that his low and
plebeian stock has the majestic distinction of Caesarean nobility.
What further? Though a plenitude of vices should take up their
abode in a man, and he be not redeemed from his faults by any
virtue, yet the mercenary dealer in flatteries, so long as the
mediating gift comes to meet him, thinly colors the sight of the
vices with the light tunic of commendation. On the other hand,
though the noon-blaze of all beauty should brighten in another's
countenance, though his tongue should be resplendent with the
silvery pearls of eloquence, though the chamber of his mind should
shine with the jewels of the virtues, yet if the artisan of blandishment
does not expect the favor of a gift, he labors to mingle with
the light of this great glory the darkness of deadly vices. What
is the ointment of flattery, then, but a cozening for gifts? What
is light commendation but the deception of prelates? What the
approval of praise but the deriding of its very subjects? For
though speech is usually the faithful interpreter of the thought,
words accurate pictures of the soul, the countenance the sign of the will, the tongue the
prophet of the mind, yet flatterers divorce the countenance from
the will, the word from the soul the tongue from the mind, the
speech from the thought, by a wide interval of separation. For
many applaud with outward, shining praise those whom they with
internal mockery deride. And in the open they extol and commend
many cordially, whom they in secret cheat with hostility and scorn.
Externally they compliment with an innocent countenance; internally
they pierce with scorpion's sting. Outwardly they rain down the
honeyed showers of flattery ; inwardly they belch the sharp storms
of detraction.'
Then I, restraining the swift course of her unpausing speech,
said:
'I could wish that thou wouldst strengthen the fort of my mind
against the furious armies of these vices by the bulwarks of thy
teaching, which are founded on reason.'
METRE VIII.
Nec te gulosae Scylla voraginis mergat.
'To the end, she answered, 'that Scylla of the greedy whirlpool
do not whelm thee in the deep night of self-indulgence, apply
the curbs of moderation to thy palate, pay thy belly its due most
temperately, let the path of thy throat taste the rain of Lyaecus,
the draughts of Bacchus, soberly, drink but little, that the
mouth may be thought to give a sort of kiss to the wine-god's
cup. Let water break the pride of Lyaeus, streams temper the madness
of Bacchus; let Thetis offer herself as a wife to Lyaeus, and
the wife curb the tyranny of the husband. Let a common, simple, spare diet wear out the mutinies of the haughty flesh.
That the despot who always exults in the flesh may drive thee
the less, let quiet Cupid take his rest. Let the bridles of love
be checked in thee and the sting of the flesh faint and be numb,
and let the flesh thus become the handmaid of the spirit. Restrain
thine eyes, and put bolts upon the door of thy vision, lest it
hunt too unvirtuously beyond the reach of the light, and, like
a scout, lay its booty before the mind. If the passion of greed
intoxicates any, let them force it to depart from them, let ostentation
note the wealth of the mind, the triumph of the mind let the neck
of desire be bent and bowed, nor even let the money linger in
the shut moneybags and sleep inactive, free to no one, but let
it rather keep watch as the guardian of honor, to be put by the
rich man to use. If the time be at hand, if the place require,
let the buried mass of wealth rise up, the money-bags cast up
coins from their very depths. Let bounty serve honor in any way
it can. If thou wishest to tread on the neck of pride, on swollen
arrogance, on ostentation of the spirit, consider the burden of
thy fleeting race, the toil of life, the close of death.'
PROSE VIII.
Cum in hanc spcecialis disciplinae semitam.
While Nature's discourse was proceeding along this particular
path of instruction, behold, a man, appearing suddenly and to
my amazement, having given no previous warning sign to our attention,
showed his presence to our sight. He, for he seemed obedient to
no law of age, now was young in the spring of youth, now his maturer face spoke of serious affairs, and now
was seen to be ploughed by the furrows of old age. Just as he
would alter through many degrees of changing age in face, so his
doubtful [1] stature was now made short and insignificant; now
his slight figure would be increased according to the scale of
an equally balanced mean; now, growing up in bold height, he would
rival the towering giants. In his face were evident no traces
of feminine softness; the strength of manly dignity reigned there
alone. It was neither flooded with the rains of tears, nor brightened
with the pleasures of laughter, but, watched over by both in moderation,
tended rather toward tears. His hair had gained a truce in fight,
and confessed the industry of the skillful comb. Yet it lay arranged
in manner seemly and proper, so that it should not stray into
extravagant ornament, and be seen to fall to a feminine delicacy.
And that the least cloud of hair should not hide his broad forehead,
the fringes of his locks had known the biting shears. And his
face also, as manly dignity demanded, did not vary at all from
favor and beauty. His chin now would sprout the first down, now
would be fringed with a longer beard, now would seem to run wild
in an abundant fleece, and now the severity of a razor would reprove
the growth's excess. Rings, gemmed with constellations of stones,
shone on his hands with extraordinary splendor, and displayed
a new sun. His garments appeared now to be common, of poor make
and coarse substance, now to rejoice in the most skillful woof
of fine material. On them ideal pictures told of the events of
marriage, though the soot of time [2] had almost made the images
fade. Yet
1. Reading staturam ancipitem, with Migne.
2, Reading vetustatis, with Migne.
nevertheless the eloquence of the picture spoke of what was woven
therein-the holy faith of marriage, the peaceful unity of wedlock,
the equal yoke of matrimony, the indissoluble bond of the wedded.
For in the book of imagery it was obscurely told what festal exultation
was wont to cheer the beginning of a nuptial, what solemn sweetness
of melody was there, how the guests, single and united, applauded
the marriage, what patrimony the sociable and jocund cithara established.
Furthermore,[1] an ordered company of men skilled in music honored
his approach. But these same musicians showed among themselves
the sorrow of their master, and enjoined silence upon their instruments.
Thereupon the frames of the instruments, which dull silence had
made tongueless, seemed to raise a groan. Then, when he had approached
close to where Nature' stood, she, calling him by name, offered
him a greeting and gave him a kiss. Then from the designation
of his name and from the telling signs of other circumstances,
I recognized him who had come as Hymen. Him Nature placed at her
right hand, and granted him its honor.
While cheerful conversation was being enjoyed between Nature and
Hymen, behold, with sudden appearance and unlooked-for coming,
a virgin, the dawn of whose beauty charmed all things, was seen
to approach on her course toward our presence. In her loveliness
was evident such high and holy art that the finger of Nature,
the finisher, had not failed in any particular. Her countenance
borrowed no false or foreign color ; but the right hand of most
powerful Nature had planted there, with marvelous grafting, the
rose vying with the lily. Her eyes were
1. Placing a period after generalis, and reading quoque for quae, with Migne.
governed by simple modesty, and did not wanton in any impudent
sally. Her lips, retentive of their freshness, seemed neither
drained by pleasures nor to have felt the first kisses of passion.
Yet one would think that her face, which flowed with tears, had
suffered sorrow of shipwreck in the flood of weeping. A wreath
of lilies, strung by a beautiful chain, smiled on her lovely head.
Yet the whiteness of her swan-like hair scorned to ask for the
radiance of the lilies, and gave out continually a rival lustre.
Her garments, furthermore, would have silenced with their truer
snows the arguments of the whiteness of the others, had not a
picture, mingled with various colors, cheated them of their purity.
For on her garments was seen interwoven, after the fancy of a
picture, how the chastity of Hippolytus was defended opposed by
a wall of constancy, and how it zealously and repelled a stepmother's
lustful desires. There Daphne, lest the bolt and bar of her virginity
should be broken through, put to rout the enticements of Phoebus
by flight. There Lucretia set off the loss of violated chastity
by the gain of death. There, in the mirror of the picture, I could
catch sight of Penelope, mirror of purity. And, to include the
picture's many eloquent but subtle touches in a brief way of speaking,
it had been careful not to cheat any daughter of chastity of her
meed of praise. A noble seal of gold, studded by a starry multitude
of jasper stones, shone like day on the right hand of the virgin.
On her left hand sat a turtle-dove, which in the manner of elegiac
song tuned the cithara of its voice to sorrowful moans. A band
of young girls, none of whom seemed to have wantoned in the wrestling-ground
of love, clung to her footsteps, to comfort her journey and do
her obedient service. When Nature had perceived her near and close at hand, she left her seat, and, coming to
her with solemn approach, showed outwardly by her first salutation,
by her welcoming kiss, and by the joining in embrace, the love
for her in her mind. And when at the beginning of the salutation
the name of this virgin shone forth, I recognized there the arrival
of Chastity.
Now while Nature was welcoming her with glad conversation, behold
, a matron, with moderate and measured gait, was seen to be directing
her way toward us. Her stature was bound within the limits of
the mean. Her age tended toward the noon-hour of life; yet in
no respect did the noon hinder the dawn of beauty. The hoar-frost
of old age was trying to scatter its snows on her hair. This she
did not allow to play in free waves over her shoulders, but held
its luxuriance in bounds. Her garments did not seem to boast
of the glory of fine material, nor to bewail their loss in being
made of common stuff. Obedient to the canons of moderation, they
neither escaped and strayed from the surface of the ground, cut
short and curtailed in excessive brevity, nor did they clothe
the face of the earth with needless length, but touched it with
the brief taste of a kiss; for a girdle governed the fall of her
tunic, and recalled irregularity to rule. A collar kept watch
over the entrances to her bosom, and denied the hand admission.
On her garments a picture showed with faithful characters what
circumscription ought to be in the words of man, what circumspectness
in his deeds, what moderation in dress, what serenity in bearing,
what bridling of the mouth in eating, what reproof of the throat
in drink. Her Nature recognized, though surrounded by few attendants,
and hastened to meet and welcome her, showing the full measure
of her love by the warm greeting with which she began, and by concluding with manifold
kisses. The clear expression of her right name told of the gracious
arrival of Temperance.
And while Nature was receiving the presence of Temperance with
the gift of a friendly salutation, behold, a woman, the daylight
of whose beauty, when presented, threw continually on the glory
of the actual day the splendor of a brighter countenance, was
seen hurrying her quick course and bending her direct approach
toward us. Her stature had scorned the poverty of human stature
in its growth, and exceeded it in unusual degree. Her head did
not bow humbly to the ground or bear a face cast down, but, with
neck straight, fixed its gaze on things above, and kept the shaft
of its vision for the heights. Nature had finished her appearance
with such careful perfection that she could admire in it her own
diligence as a maker. A diadem, which did not redeem property
of material by pre-eminence of workmanship, or atone for meanness
of workmanship by fineness of material, but which showed in both
a supreme monarchy without the pain of that absolute state, glowed
on her head. Yet her golden hair, more flaming and with lovelier
fire, seemed to afford a seat to the golden diadem indignantly.
Not cut short by industrious scissors, nor collected into companies
of locks, it wantoned in freer wandering, and, crossing the limits
of the shoulders was seen to condescend to the poor estate of
earth. Her arms were not bound to a scant shortness, but, extending
in ample length. seemed not destined to shrink , but rather to
increase further. Her hands, which did not turn back in any hollow
curve, but which lay open, ample and broad, cared for the offices
of giving. Her garments, which had their substance of golden-
and- silken threads joined in the kiss of the web-such that the fineness of the workmanship was
inferior [1]' to the richness of the material ,-rejoiced in such
evidences of art that you would think that a hand, not of earth,
but from very heaven, had toiled at their making. On them an imaginative
but- lifelike picture condemned, by reproach and anathema with
its art's deceptive illusion, those men who toil in the notorious
sin of avarice. It seemed, moreover, to honor the sons of generosity
by the praise of fame, and to make them sharers in the grace of
her benediction. While this woman, closely accompanied by three
attendants, pressed on in her haste to approach, behold, Nature
ran quickly to meet her and welcomed her coming, and, dividing
her kiss with a salutation, closed her salutation with a kiss.
And while the singular distinction of her beauty, the elegance
of her unusual apparel, the individuality of her bearing, were
speaking openly of the arrival of Generosity, the sound of her
name in the salutation took [2] the credibility of the matter
away from the cloud of doubt.
Then while Nature was performing to Generosity the duties of salutation
and friendly welcome, behold, a maiden of slow and somewhat sadder
step, calmer in the peace of her dove-like countenance, and lowlier
in her small and slender figure, encouraged herself to turn to
us her gentle and measured approach. Yet her grace and her beauty
came to plead in behalf of [3] the slight stature. For these,
acquired not by the mechanical deceits of human art, but gushing
from the living fountain of nature, had breathed upon her whole
body with the graces of loveliness. Her hair had been cut with
such hungry scis-
1. B. has non degeneraret, was not inferior.
2. Emending excepi to excepit.
3. Reading venerat in patronum, with Migne.
sors, that, shortened in the fashion of the cutting, it had passed
into a blemish. But some tresses which wandered and strayed irregularly,
and were entangled with inextricable confusion, seemed to be at
strife within themselves. Her head was cast down with profound
abasement, and humbly bowed toward the ground. Her garments, which
did not fail from their native color through the addition of any
foreign hue, excused the commonness their of their ordinary material
by artistic workmanship. Here was read, written in the imaginative
fancies of a picture, how in the list of virtues humility shines
foremost, carrying the banner of excellence; how by the holy synod
of the virtues pride is anathematized with the mark of excommunication,
and condemned to banishment and uttermost destruction. To meet
her, then, as she approached, Nature went with especial haste,
and, as she sweetened the dish of her salutation with the spice
of kisses, showed a face of deep affection. In the peculiar phrases
of this distinguished personage was made clear the arrival of
Humility.
Then while Hymen and these women were copying the appearance of
profound sorrow from the face of Nature, and were striving to
produce in lines of outward grief the feelings of inward pain,
lo, Nature, anticipating their speech with speech, said:
`O lonely lamps in human darkness, morning stars of a setting
world, scattered planks to those suffering shipwreck, solitary
ports on earthly floods! I perceive, with a mature and deep-rooted
understanding, what is [1] the reason for your coming together,
what the occasion for your arrival, what the cause of your lamentation,
what the source of your grief. For men who are fashioned only
in the beauty of humanity,
1. Reading sit, with Migne.
and who yet within are sunk into weak and bestial ugliness, and
whom I grieve to have invested with the robe of manhood, are endeavoring
to disinherit you from your patrimony of an earthly habitation,
and are seizing all power on earth, and forcing you to repair
to your celestial home. Since, then, my welfare is affected, since
our party-wall is flaming with fire, I feel compassion for your
suffering, sympathize in your grief, read my groans [1] in your
groans [2] and find my loss in your adversity. Therefore, passing
over nothing of what has happened, I will attain my own goal myself,
and I will smite these men with vengeance answering to their sin,
so far as I am able to extend the arm of my might. But since I
cannot exceed the limit of my power, and it is not in my control
to root out the poison of this pestilence completely, I will follow
the measure of my ability, and brand the men who are caught in
these crooked vices with the mark of anathema.
'But it is fitting to ask Genius, who assists me in the priestly
office, to cast out, with the aiding presence of my judiciary
power, with your assent and favoring help, and with the pastoral
rod of excommunication, those men from the catalogue of the things
of nature, from the bounds of my jurisdiction. Hymen, the highly
proved, will be the executor of this mission. In him shine the
stars of glittering eloquence, and in his possession is placed
the armory of the examining council.'
Then they rose, and, resting from their tears and lament, bowed
their heads in deep humility, and freely gave to Nature abundant
signs of their gratitude due. And Hymen, who humbled himself on
bended knee
1. Reading gemitum, with B. and Migne.
2. Reading gemitut, with B. and Migne.
in the immediate sight of Nature, declared himself obedient to
the appointed mission. Then she marked and inscribed with a reed-pen
a papyrus sheet with an epistolary composition of this sort:
`Nature, by the grace of God delegated protectress [1] of the
worldly realm, to Genius, her other self, greeting, and a wish
that in everything he be befriended by the favors of fair fortune!
Since similarities rejoice in a scorn of things unlike them, and
in the friendly appearance of things like them, I, who find in
thee, as in the mirror of Nature, myself again in marked resemblance,
am bound to thee by the knot of most ardent love, so that I am
with thee in all -go things, advance in thy progress, or, in like
measure, droop in thy failure. Therefore ought our love to be
reciprocal, so that thou wouldest answer with equal affection,
and make our fortunes one [2]. The evidence of evil committed
tells thee fully, in the form of a loud wail, of the shipwreck
of the human race. For thou seest how men debase the original
dignity of their natures with bestial pleasures, and transgress
humanity's privileged state, changing in their degenerate practices
to beasts, and how, in following their [3] own desires in the
pursuit of lust, going to shipwreck in the whirlpools of intemperance,
seething in the heat of avarice, flying upon the false wings of
pride, giving way to the bites of envy, gilding others with the
hypocrisy of flattery, they fall far from their natural and noble
state. No one is ready with medicinal remedies for these vicious
diseases. No one restrains the torrent of these crimes with a
dyke of defense. No harbor checks unchangeably the flood tides
of these evil deeds. Therefore the virtues, be-
1. Migne reads procreatrix.
2. Commencing a new sentence at patrati, with Migne.
ing wholly unable to bear the assault of such a hostile onset,
have fled to us, as to a refuge of defense and a succor to their
life. Since our common interests are thrown into confusion by
the fierce attack, I entreat thee with prayers, enjoin thee by
the virtue of obedience, both warn as I command, and command as
I warn, that thou banish all deception and excuse, and hasten
thy approach to us, and that with the aiding presence of myself
and my women, thou sever the children of abomination from the
holy communion of our congregation, and, in the due solemnity
of thine office, smite them with the hard rod of excommunication.'
Thereupon she gave the letter, which had been sealed and marked
with a signet, on which an artist's skill had graved the name
and image of Nature, to her legate to deliver. Then Hymen, ending
his acts of thanks with a graver countenance of joy, received
his appointed embassy, and, rousing his companions from dull
idleness, bade them take up their instruments of music, and, stirring
them from dumb silence, summon them to the measures of harmonious
melody. Then caressing their instruments in a few preludes, they
struck out a sound of many notes in one, of quality unlike yet
consonant, of manifold tone.
METRE IX.
Jam tuba terribili bellum clangore salutans.
Now the trumpet's salute with terrible clang thundered war. telling
of the kindred prologues to war, and marked the tumult with tumultuous
bellowing. The horn tortured the air with unsubstantial wounds.
Its wild, unruly voice knew not how to obey the numbers of music,
and scorned to favor art, and music marveled at its lawless song. The clear, fair voice of the cithara,
more sweetly than the others, offered the ear feasts of honeyed
sound ; and, varying and adorning the character of its song, now
feigned grief in its tone and gave rise to tears, now offered
a deceptive mimicry of laughter. The lyre, which sings always
like a nightingale with lovely song, though more sweetly alluring,
and which gathers the first of sleep for the eyes, silenced the
murmurs of the unhappy mind.[1] The pipe, which keeps vigil by
night like an active sentinel, atoned to watchers for their loss
of sleep. It laughed in the ears, so that the stony hardness of
the heart became like wax, [2] and the harshness of the unmoved
mind was forced to melt and drive away its own severity. Drums,
which came with dull sound, slowed the progress of this music
and the keenness of the swift song. Yet was their resonance not
without charm, if one struck these drums a stroke of gentle force,
aroused them and tried them, allied as they were in the deep
volume [3] of their hollow air, with the touch of a friendly hand.
The wind instruments made pleasant noise. joined and then divided,
divided and then joined, was the uneven equality of their song,
their harmonious discord, their varied unity, the concordant dissension
of their voices. With common sound and beggarly voice rang the
cymbals, the clamor of which never appeals to our ears, and which
was hardly worthy to deserve the hearing of men. None was greater,
better, or more agreeable than that which by itself silenced
these strains-the sweet song of the pentachord, whose echoes and
sound [4] the common
1. Placing a period after mentis.
2. Reading per quam sit cerea cordis, with B.
3. Reading tractu, with B. and Migne.
4. Reading vocem, with Migne.
people who vie in song adore. While in rival tone it was thus
contending with the cithara, there rose a pleasant sound, hidden
in the honey of the psaltery and sweetened with its flavor bearing
the slighter gifts of song. Sistra which asked the touch of a
girlish hand, together with women's voices, like prophets of Mars
and war, sang the wonders of such Music as had never been heard.
PROSE IX.
Igitur Hymenteo mysticae legationis mysteries indulgente.
Then while Hymen was employed in the secret rites of his mystic
embassy, Nature, in a sorrowful speech of wretched complaint,
reviewed the wrongs of those by whose violent and disgraceful
acts the glory of her state had felt the full injury of deep loss.
And here she censured with the stings of reproof, more sharply
than the others, one who, more rudely than the rest, had taken
pains to dishonor the orderly being of Nature. Although Fortune
smiled upon him with high favor, and though the gift-nay the gifts-of
knowledge were joined to him, and though Magnanimity brought him
up, and Generosity taught him, yet because the whole mass works
with a little sour leaven, the fall of one virtue was obscuring
entirely the rise of the other virtues, the eclipse of one good
quality was forcing the stars of the other good qualities to die
away in dark retreat. Now when Generosity saw this censure aimed
at her foster-child, she did not dare to adorn his faults with
the cloak of a defense, but, with low bending of her humbled head,
sought the relief of tears.
But Nature, who considered what the bowing of the head and the
flow of tears stood for, spoke to [1] Generosity gracious words,
saying:
'O virgin, in the building of whose excellence the human race
enters into the habitation of the virtues, through whom men attain
the rewards of kindness and favor, through whom the ancient cycles
of the golden age live again, through whom men bind themselves
in the pact of warmest friendship, the eternal Being has begotten
and produced with the everlasting kiss of His spirit, and has
given me an own sister. Not only the natural tie of blood binds
her to me. but the connection of pure love links us also. And
because of this, thine even judgment does not allow thy will to
wander from the consideration of my will. For such a union in
symmetry, nay, a symmetry in unity, harmonizes our minds in firm
peace, that not only is that union clothed in the express image
of union, but even puts aside mere outward unity and tends towards
the essence of identity. . And so a wrong to the one, which does
not attack the other, assails neither; a temptation for one subdues
neither, if it does not threaten the other. He, then, who tries
to weaken my name and renown by the loud blasphemy of shameless
deeds, tries in the persistence of his evil vexation to detract
from thy glory. He who abuses the gifts of Nature in the waste
of ungovemed prodigality is stripped of the gifts of Fortune as
a penalty for his lawless extravagance. Thus does the prostituted
fellowship of Prodigality falsely profess the honorableness of
Generosity. Thus, too, a torrent of wealth is turned off into
the desert of poverty, brilliance of wisdom errs and degenerates
into folly, magnanimous strength is relaxed into reckless daring.
1. Emending Largitas to Largitatis.
Therefore I am wearied with surprise why, at a condemnation of
him who tries more destructively than the others to ruin us, thou
art not able to check the flood of tears.'
Then Generosity, drying and removing the river of tears from her
countenance, raised again her bowed head to the skies and said:
"O first foundation of everything in nature! O special protection
for all! O queen of the region of earth! O trusty agent of a principal
above the heavens; who, acting under the authority of the eternal
master, dost not disturb thy faithful administration with any
disobedience; whom the whole world is bound by the demand of primal
righteousness to obey! As strong affinity and close relationship
require, the golden chain of love connects me to thee. He, then,
who sells his nature to ruin and abomination, and assails thee
with insult and fierce rebellion, rebels against me with equal
insolence and rage. Although, deceived by the shadowy forms of
credulity, he believes that he is serving among my train, and
although men who are lured by the flashy appearance of Prodigality
smell the footsteps of Generosity there, yet they are anathematized
from our favor and friendship to long banishment. But, inasmuch
as it is ours to sympathize and condole with warped and straying
error, I cannot be unmoved at the fatal sin of his irrational
will.'
While the meeting in speech of question and answer was going on
between these women, behold, to the applause and festivity of
instruments of music, and of strange and striking appearance,
Genius came before us. His stature, which was duly limited by
the canon of the mean, neither complained of subtraction and curtailment,
nor grieved at addition and excess. His head was clothed with
locks of hoary whiteness
and bore the marks of wintry age; yet his face was delicate with
the smoothness of youth, and unfurrowed by any of the plow-marks
of old age. His Lyarments, whose workmanship followed nature,
seemed now to be in flames of purple, now to be bright. like hyacinth,
now to burn with scarlet, now to be a clearer white than lawn,
not knowing the want of any one. On them images of things lived
momentarily, and as quickly vanished, so as to elude our scrutiny
and perception. He carried in his right hand a reed of frail papyrus,
which never rested from its occupation of writing; and in his
left he bore an animal's skin from which a knife had cut and bared
the shock of hair, and on this, by means of his compliant pen,
he gave to images, which passed from the shadow of a sketch to
the truth of very being, the life of their kind. And when these
slumbered in the death of deletion, others were called [1] to
life in a new rising and birth. There Helen, half a goddess in
her loveliness, the brilliancy of her beauty interposing for her,
could be called beauty. There the lightning-flash of boldness
ruled in Turnus, strength in Hercules. There rose a giant's height
in Capaneus; in Ulysses played a fox-like shrewdness. There Cato
was intoxicated with the golden nectar of virtuous sobriety; Plato
shone with the sidereal splendor of genius. There the splendid
tail of the peacock of Ciceronian eloquence glittered variously.
There Aristotle involved his puzzling thoughts in concealing phrases.
Then, after this serious drawing, the left hand came to the aid
of the right, which had become tired with its work of constant
delineation, as to the aid of a wearied sister, and assumed the
office of designing, while the right hand took the writing surface.
The
1. Reading revocabantur, with Migne.
left hand forsook the path of true representation with false and
limping imagery, and created figures of things, or rather the
shadowy ghosts of figures, with incomplete depiction. For there
Thersites, clothed in the raggedness of disgrace, asked the expertness
of a more skilled artist. There Paris was subdued by the voluptuousness
of carnal love. There Sinon's weapons were the subterfuges of
trick and concealment. There the verses of Ennius starved for
beauty of thought, transgressed metrical art with unbridled license.
There Pacuvius, who knew not how to order the course of a story,
placed the beginning of his composition at the end.
Then Truth, who followed in attendance like the modest daughter
of a father, assisted Genius in the skillful execution of the
pictures, while he bent seriously over the work. Not by the common
passion of Aphrodite had she been begotten, but she was sprung
from the loving kiss alone of Nature and her son, when the Eternal
Mind greeted matter, as it was considering the reflection of forms,
and kissed it by the intermediate agency and intervention of an
image. In her face was read the divinity of godlike beauty, which
scorned our nature's mortality. Her raiment, glowing with the
splendors of unwearied brilliancy, and eloquent of the hand of
a heavenly maker, was uncorrupted by the moth of old age. It was
joined to the virgin's body in such a close connection that no
division ever separated them. Other garments, of unfamiliar nature,
so to speak, supplementary to the former, now offered glimpses
to our eyes, now stole from their gaze. Opposite stood Falsehood,
hostile to Truth, and very watchful. Her countenance was clouded
with the soot of dishonor I and confessed none of Nature's gifts,
for old age had subjected it to hollow creases, and drawn it all together in folds. Her head was seen
to be unclothed with covering hair. Nor did she compensate for
the baldness by an enveloping robe; but an infinity of little
patches, joined by a greater of threads, had composed a cloak
for her secretly spying on the pictures of Truth, she rudely marred
whatever Truth harmoniously formed.
Nature at this gave free reins to her approach, and was seen to
go solemnly to a solemn meeting. And to Genius, as he hastened
to meet her, she offered her lips, which were not stirred with
the poison of any illicit passion, but which signified those embraces
of the mystic love which show the harmony of spiritual affection.
After the mutual rejoicing had been consummated in an end of satisfaction,
Genius, with hand raised in request, enjoined silence, and, 175
material of his voice into following this, coined the this form
of speech:
`O Nature, I do not believe that without the divine breath of
inspiration has that imperial edict gone out from thine even judgment,
to the effect that all who try by abuse and neglect to reduce
our laws to ruin should not rejoice in the high day of our festival,
but should be smitten with the sword of anathema. And since this
law and legitimate decree does not oppose the rule of justness,
and since the scales of thy careful judgment sit quiet on the
balance tongue of my consideration, I hasten more quickly to strengthen
the ruling of thine edict. For though my mind, which has been
tormented by the odious vices of men, and which has traveled into
the depth go of sorrow, is unacquainted with the paradise of gladness,
yet the beginning of delight and joy smells sweetly in this, that
I see thee striving with me toward the attainment of vengeance
due. And it is not strange if in the harmonious union of our wills I find the music of concord,
since one original thought and idea conforms us with each other,
and has brought us into the same mind, since the official rank
of one administration makes us alike, and since hypocritical love
does not join our minds with the hand of shallow affection, but
the virtue of pure love dwells in the inner secret places of our
souls.'
While Genius was limiting the course of his speech to these few
words, Nature drew aside a little the shadows of sorrow with what
was like the rising dawn of an exclamation, and, though with the
honor of her position preserved, showed to Genius her proper gratitude.
Then Genius, after laying aside his common garment, and being
adorned more honorably with 210the higher ornaments of the sacerdotal
vestment, called out from the secret places of his mind the order
of excommunication referred to, under this form of words, and
proceeding in this way of speech:
'By the authority of the Absolute Being and of His eternal thought,
and with the approbation of the celestial soldiery, and the agreement
of Nature and the assisting ministry of the attendant virtues
beside, let him be separated from the kiss of heavenly love, as
the desert of ingratitude demands, let him be degraded from the
favor of Nature, let him be isolated from the harmonious assembly
of the things of Nature, whoever turns awry the lawful course
of love, or is often shipwrecked in gluttony, or swallows greedily
the delirium of drunkenness, or thirsts in the fire of avarice,
or ascends the shadowy pinnacle of insolent pride, or suffers
the deep-seated destruction of envy, or keeps company with the
false love of flattery. Let him who makes an irregular exception
to the rule of love be deprived of the sign of love. Let him who is deep in the abyss of gluttony be chastised by shamefaced
beggary. Let him who sleeps in the Lethean stream of drunkenness
be tormented with the fires of perpetual thirst. Let him in whom
burns the passion to possess incur the continual needs of poverty.
Let him who, exalted on the precipice of pride, throws out a spirit
of arrogance, fall ingloriously into the valley of dejected humility.
Let him who envies and gnaws like the, moth of detraction at the
riches of another's happiness first find himself an enemy to himself.
Let him who hunts gifts from the rich by the hypocrisy of flattery
be cheated by a reward of deceptive worth.'
After Genius, in the utterance of this anathema, had made an end
to his speech, the assembly of the women approved of the curse
with quick word of ratification, and confirmed his edict. Then
the lights of the tapers in their hands became drowsy, sank to
the earth with a scorn of extinction, and seemed to be fallen
asleep. With the mirror of this visionary sight taken away, the
previous view of the mystic apparition left me, who had been fired
by ecstasy, in sleep.
Wright appends the sentence, Explicit Alani Minime Capellae,
de Conquestu seu Planctu Naturae. This is omitted in Migne's Patrologia.
Alain of Lille [Alanus de lnsulis], d. 1202., The Complaint of Nature., Yale studies in English, v. 36 (1908), translation of De planctu natura by Douglas M. Moffat, [Reprinted 1972 as an Archon Book by The Shoe String Press, Inc., Hamden, Connecticut]
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(c)Paul Halsall Mar 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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