not strive so hard to prove that which is so very evident—namely, that there is nothing pure and unalloyed; and some have said that no mixed thing is a real entity, as alloyed gold is not real gold, manufactured wine is not real simple wine. Almost all things are made up of opposites, whence it comes that the success of our affections, through the mixture that is in things, can afford no pleasure without some bitterness; and more than this, I will say, that were it not for the bitter, there would be no sweet; seeing that it is through fatigue that we find pleasure in repose; separation is the cause of our pleasure in union; and, examining generally, we shall ever find that one opposite is the reason that the other opposite pleases and is desired.
Cic. Then there is no delight without the contrary?
Tans. Certainly not; as without the opposite there is no pain; as is shown by that golden Pythagorean poet when he says:
Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, nec
Respiciunt, clausæ tenebris, e carcere cæco.
This, then, is what the mixture of things causes, and hence it is that no one is pleased with his own state, except some senseless blockhead, who is so all the more the deeper is the degree of obscure folly
in which he is sunk; then he has little or no apprehension of pain; he enjoys the actual present without fearing the future; he enjoys that which is and that in which he finds himself, and has neither care nor sorrow for what may be; and, in short, has no sense of that opposition which is symbolized by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Cic. From this we see that ignorance is the mother of sensual felicity and beatitude, and this same is the garden of paradise of the animals; as is made clear in the dialogues of the Kabala of the horse Pegasus; and as says the wise Solomon, "Whoso increases knowledge increases sorrow."
Tans. Hence it appears that heroic love is a torment, because it does not enjoy the present, as does animal love, but is of the future and the absent; and, on the contrary, it feels ambition, emulation, suspicion and dread. One evening, after supper, a certain neighbour of ours said: "Never was I more jolly than I am now." John Bruno, father of the Nolano, answered him: "Never wert thou more foolish than now."
Cic. You would imply, then, that he who is sad is wise, and that other who is more sad is wiser?
Tans. On the contrary, I mean that there