And by the fourth nature, of the animals, that is, the sensitive, Man has the other love, by which he loves according to the sensible appearance, like the beasts; and this love in Man especially has need of control, because of its excessive operation in the delights given, especially through sight and touch.
And because of the fifth and last nature, which is the true Human Nature, and, to use a better phrase, the Angelic, namely, the Rational, Man has by it the Love of Truth and Virtue; and from this Love is born true and perfect friendship from the honest intercourse of which the Philosopher speaks in the eighth book of the Ethics, when he treats of Friendship.
Wherefore, since this nature is termed Mind, as is proved above, I spoke of Love as discoursing in my Mind in order to explain that this Love was the Friendship which is born of that most noble nature, that is, of Truth and Virtue, and to exclude each false opinion, by which my Love might be suspected to spring from pleasure of the Senses.
I then say, "With constant pleasure," to make people understand its continuance and its fervour. And I say that it often whispers "Things over which the intellect may stray." And I speak truth, because my thoughts, when reasoning of her, often sought to draw conclusions of her, which I could not comprehend, and I was alarmed, so that I seemed almost like one dazed, even as he who, looking with the eye along a direct line, sees first the nearest things clearly; then, proceeding, it sees them less clearly; then, further on, doubtfully; then, proceeding an immense way, the sight is divided from the object, and sees nothing. And this is one unspeakable thing of that which I have taken for a theme; and consequently I relate the other when I say:
His words make music of so sweet a kind
That the Soul hears and feels, and cries, Ah, me,
That I want power to tell what thus I see!
And because I know not how to tell it, I say that my soul laments, saying, "Ah, me, that I want power." And this is the other unspeakable thing, that the tongue is not a complete and perfect follower of all that the intellect sees. And I say, "That the Soul hears and feels;" hearing, as to the words, and feeling, as to the sweetness of the sound.
CHAPTER IV.
Now that the two ineffable parts of this matter have been discussed, we must proceed to discuss words that describe my insufficiency.
I say, then, that my insufficiency arises from a double cause, even as in a twofold manner the exalted nature of my Lady surpasses all, in the way which has been told. For I am compelled, by the poverty of my intellect, to omit much of the truth concerning her which shone into my mind like rays of light, but which my mind receives like a transparent body, unable to gather up the ends thereof and reflect them back. And this I express in that following part: "First, all that Reason cannot make its own I needs must leave." Then, when I say, "And of what can be known," I say that not even to that which I do understand am I sufficient, because my tongue is not so eloquent that it could tell that which is discoursed in my thoughts concerning her. It may be seen, therefore, that, with respect to the Truth, it is very little that I shall say; and this redounds to her great praise, if well considered, in that which was the main intention. And it is possible to say that this form of speech came indeed from the workshop of Rhetoric, which on every side lays its hand upon the main intention. Then, when it says, "If my Song fail," I excuse myself for my fault, which ought not, then, to be blamed when others see that my words are far below the dignity of this Lady. And I say that, if the defect is in my rhymes, that is, in my words, which are appointed to discourse of her, for this are to be blamed the weakness of the intellect and the abruptness of our speech: "blame wit and words," which are overpowered by the thought, so that they cannot follow it entirely, especially there where the thought is born of love, because there the Soul searches more deeply than elsewhere. It would be quite possible for any one to say: Thou dost excuse and accuse thyself all in one breath, which is a reason for blame, not for escape from blame, inasmuch as the blame, which is mine, is cast on the intellect and on the speech; for, if it be good, I ought to be praised for it in so much as it is so; and if it be defective, I ought to be blamed. To this it is possible to reply, briefly, that I do not accuse myself, but that I excuse myself in truth. And therefore it is to be known, according to the opinion of the Philosopher in the third book of the Ethics, that man is worthy of praise or of blame only in those things which it is in his power to do or not to do; but in those things over which he has no power he deserves neither blame nor praise, since either the praise or blame is to be attributed to some other, although the things may be parts of the man himself. Therefore, we ought not to blame the man because his body, from his birth, may be ugly, since it was not in his power to make it beautiful; but our blame should fall on the evil disposition of the matter whereof he is made, whose source was a defect of Nature. And even so we ought not to praise the man for the beauty of form which he may have from his birth, for he was not the maker of it; but we ought to praise the artificer, that is, Human Nature, who shapes her material into so much beauty when she is not impeded. And therefore the priest said well to the Emperor who laughed and scoffed at the ugliness of his body: "The Lord, He is God: It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves;" and these are the words of the Prophet in a verse of the Psalms, written neither more nor less than according to the reply of the Priest.
And therefore let the wicked evil-born ones perceive that, if they put their chief care in the adornment of their persons, it must be with all modesty; for to do that is no other than to adorn the work of another, that is, Nature, and to abandon their own proper work.