Thou lookest around and seest whate’er thou wilt explore.
His people asked of Noah where righteousness might be.
He said: “Lo, there! With muffled heads you cannot see.
You’ve wrapped your cloaks in folds about your heads and eyes.
Your sense of sight cannot see what before you lies.”
The world’s eye man is; all the rest’s mere skin and shell.
A real eye’s he who strives his “Friend” to see right well.[189]35
Unless we see our Friend, ’twere better we were blind,
A friend that is not constant’s better out of mind.
When Rome’s ambassador had heard those words so wise,[190]