Galatea

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Love is a fire that burns the soul within,
A frost that freezes; dart that opes the breast,
Which heedeth not its cunning manifold;
A troubled sea where calm hath ne'er been seen;
Wrath's minister; enemy manifest,
In guise of friend; father of dismay cold;
Giver of scanty good and ill untold;
Caressing; full of lies;
Fierce in his tyrannies;
A traitorous Circe that transforms us all
To divers monstrous shapes fantastical
Wherefrom no power of man can us restore,
Though quickly at our call
Comes reason's light, to what we were before,

A yoke that doth the proudest neck abase;
A mark to which desires of slothful ease,
Born without reason, go as to their goal;
A treacherous net, which men of highest place
Amidst their foul and unclean sins doth seize
And doth within its subtle mesh enthrall;
A pleasing ill that tempts the senses all;
Poison in guise of pill,
Gilded, but poison still;
A bolt that burns and cleaves where it descendeth;
An angry arm that traitorously offendeth;
Headsman that dooms the thought which captive lies,
Or which itself defendeth
From the sweet charm of his false fantasies;

A hurt that doth in the beginning please,
When on an object which doth seem as fair
As the fair heavens above, the sight doth feast—
And yet the more it looks with yearning gaze,
The more the heart doth suffer everywhere,
The heart that is with anguish sore distressed—
Dumb speaker; chatterer with dumbness oppressed;
A wise man babbling folly;
Ruin that slayeth wholly;
The life which joyous harmony doth fill;
Shadow of good that is transformed to ill;
A flight that raiseth us to Heaven on high,
Only that grief may still
Live after we have fallen, and pleasure die;

A thief unseen that doth destroy us quite,
And robs us of our wealth with ruthless hand,
Carrying our souls away at every hour;
A speed that overtakes the quickest flight;
A riddle none there is to understand;
A life that always is in peril sore;
A chosen, and, withal, a chance-born war;
A truce that is but brief;
Beloved, luckless grief;
Promise that never doth to fruitage come;
Illness that makes within the soul its home;
Coward that upon evil rusheth bold;
Debtor that doth the sum
He owes, which is our due, ever withhold;

A labyrinth wherein is nestling found
A fierce wild beast that doth itself sustain
On the surrendered hearts of all mankind;
A bond wherewith the lives of all are bound;
A lord that from his steward seeks to gain
Account of deed and word, and of his mind;
Greed, unto countless varied aims inclined;
A worm that builds a house,
Wretched or beauteous,
Where for a little while it dwells and dies;
A sigh that never knows for what it sighs;
A cloud that darkens all our faculties;
A knife that wounds us—this
Is Love, him follow, if ye think it wise.'

With this song the loveless Lenio ended his reasoning, leaving some of those that were present full of wonder at both, especially the gentlemen, for it seemed to them that what Lenio had said seemed of more worth than was usual with a shepherd's intellect. And with great desire and attention they were awaiting Thyrsis's reply, all promising themselves in fancy that it would without any doubt excel Lenio's, for Thyrsis exceeded him in age and experience, and in the studies most generally pursued, and this likewise reassured them, for they desired that Lenio's loveless opinion should not prevail. It is indeed true that the hapless Teolinda, the loving Leonarda, the fair Rosaura, and even the lady who came with Darinto and his companion, clearly saw depicted in Lenio's discourse a thousand points of the course of their loves; and this was when he came to treat of tears and sighs, and of how dearly the joys of love were bought. Only the fair Galatea and the discreet Florisa did not count in this, for up till then love had not taken count of their fair rebellious breasts, and so they were eager only to hear the acuteness with which the two famous shepherds disputed, without seeing in their free will any of the effects of love they were hearing of. But Thyrsis's will being to reduce to better limits the loveless shepherds opinion, without waiting to be asked, the minds of the bystanders hanging on his lips, he set himself in front of Lenio, and with agreeable and elevated tone began to speak in this wise:

THYRSIS. 'If the acuteness of your fair intellect, loveless shepherd, did not assure me that with ease it can attain the truth, from which it finds itself so far at present, rather than put myself to the trouble of contradicting your opinion, I would leave you in it, as a punishment for your unjust words. But because those you have uttered in blame of love show me the good germs you possess by which you may be brought to a better purpose, I do not wish by my silence to leave those who hear us scandalised, love despised, and you pertinacious and vainglorious; and so, being aided by Love on whom I call, I think in a few words to show how different are his works and effects from those you have declared about him, speaking only of the love you mean, which you defined when you said that it was a desire for beauty, and likewise declared what beauty was, and a little later you closely examined all the effects which the love of which you speak produced in loving breasts, finally strengthening your views with various unhappy events caused by love. And though the definition you made of love may be the one most generally given, yet it is not so much so but that it may be contradicted; for love and desire are two different things, since not everything that is loved is desired, nor everything that is desired loved. The reasoning is clear in the case of all things that are possessed, for then it cannot be said that they are desired, but that they are loved: thus, he who has health will not say that he desires health, but that he loves it; and he who has children cannot say that he desires children, but that he loves his children; nor yet can it be said of the things that are desired that they are loved, as of the death of enemies, which is desired and not loved. And so for this reason love and desire come to be different passions of the will. The truth is that love is the father of desire, and amongst other definitions which are given of love this is one. Love is that first change which we feel caused in our mind by the appetite which moves us and draws us to itself, delighting and pleasing us; and that pleasure begets motion in the soul, which motion is called desire, and, in short, desire is a motion of the appetite in regard to what is loved, and a wish for that which is possessed, and its object is happiness. And as there are found different species of desires, and love is a species of desire which looks to and regards the happiness which is called fair, yet for a clearer definition and division of love it must be understood that it is divided into three kinds, chaste love, useful love, and delectable love. And to these three forms of love are reduced all the kinds of loving and desiring that can exist in our will: for the chaste love regards the things of Heaven, eternal and divine; the useful, the things of earth, full of joy and doomed to perish, such as wealth, powers, and lordships; the delectable, things giving delight and pleasure, as the living corporeal beauties of which you, Lenio, spoke. And each form of these loves of which I have spoken ought not to be blamed by any tongue, for the chaste love ever was, is and must be spotless, simple, pure and divine, finding rest and repose in God alone. Profitable love, being, as it is, natural, ought not to be condemned, still less the delectable, for it is more natural than the profitable. That these two forms of love are natural in us, experience shows us, for as soon as our daring first parent transgressed the divine commandment, and from lord was made a servant, and from freeman a slave, straightway he knew the misery into which he had fallen, and the poverty in which he was. And so he at once took the leaves of trees to cover him, and sweated and toiled, breaking the earth to sustain himself, and to live with the least discomfort possible; and thereafter, obeying his God therein better than in aught else, he sought to have children, and in them to perpetuate and delight the human race. And as by his disobedience death entered into him, and through him into all his descendants, so we inherit at the same time all his affections and passions, as we inherit his very nature; and as he sought to remedy his necessity and poverty, so we cannot fail to seek and desire to remedy ours. And hence springs the love we have for things useful to human life; and the more we gain of them, the more it seems to us we remedy our want. And by the same reasoning we inherit the desire of perpetuating ourselves in our children; and from this desire follows that, which we have, to enjoy living corporeal beauty, as the only true means which lead such desires to a happy end. So that this delectable love, alone and without mixture of any other accident, is worthy rather of praise than of blame. And this is the love, which you, Lenio, hold for enemy; and the cause is that you do not understand it, nor know it, for you have never seen it alone, and in its own shape, but always accompanied by pernicious, lascivious and ill-placed desires. And this is not the fault of love, which is always good, but of the accidents which come to it; as we see happening in some copious stream, that has its birth from some clear and limpid spring, which is ever supplying to it clear cool waters, and a little while after it leaves its stainless mother, its sweet and crystalline waters are changed to bitter and turbid, by reason of the many stained brooks, which join it on either side. Hence this first motion, love or desire as you would call it, cannot arise except from a good beginning; and truly among good beginnings is the knowledge of beauty, which, once recognised as such, it seems well-nigh impossible to avoid loving. And beauty has such power to move our minds, that it alone caused the ancient philosophers (blind and without the light of faith to guide them), led by natural reason, and attracted by the beauty they beheld in the starry heavens, and in the mechanism and roundness of the earth, marvelling at such harmony and beauty, to pursue investigations with the understanding, making a ladder by these second causes to reach the first cause of causes; and they recognised that there was one only beginning without beginning of all things. But that which made them wonder most and raise their thoughts, was to see the frame of man so well-ordered, so perfect and so beautiful, that they came to call him a world in little; and so it is true that in all the works made by God's steward, Nature, nothing is of such excellence, nor reveals more the greatness and wisdom of its Maker. For in the form and frame of man is summed up and enclosed the beauty which is distributed in all the other parts of it; and hence it arises that this beauty, when recognised, is loved, and as all beauty displays itself most and is most resplendent in the face, as soon as a beautiful face is seen, it summons and draws the will to love it.

'Hence it follows that as the faces of women so much excel in beauty those of men, it is they who are the more loved, served and courted by us, as the object in which dwells the beauty that is naturally more pleasing to our sight. But our Maker and Creator, seeing that it is the proper nature of our soul to be for ever in perpetual motion and desire, for it cannot find rest save in God, as in its proper centre, willed, so that it might not rush with loosened rein to desire things empty and doomed to perish, and this without taking from it the liberty of free-will, to set over its three powers an alert sentinel, who should warn it against the dangers that opposed it and the enemies that persecuted it; this was reason, which corrects and curbs our inordinate desires. And seeing likewise that human beauty must needs draw after it our passions and inclinations, while it did not seem good to Him to take away from us this desire, at least He wished to temper it and correct it, ordaining the holy yoke of matrimony, beneath which most of the natural joys and pleasures of love are lawful and fitting for man and woman. By these two remedies imposed by the divine hand comes to be tempered the excess there can be in the natural love which you, Lenio, blame, which love is of itself so good that if it were lacking in us, the world and we would end. In this very love of which I am speaking are summed up all the virtues, for love is moderation, since the lover, according to the chaste wish of the beloved object, tempers his own; it is fortitude, for the lover can endure any adversity for the love of the one who loves him; it is justice, for with it he serves her who loves well, reason itself forcing him to it; it is prudence, for love is adorned with all wisdom. But I ask you, oh Lenio, you who have said that love is the cause of the ruin of empires, of the destruction of cities, of the deaths of friends, of sacrileges committed, the deviser of treasons, the transgressor of laws—I ask you, I say, to tell me, what praiseworthy thing there is to-day in the world, however good it be, the use of which cannot be changed into evil. Let philosophy be condemned, for often it discovers our faults, and many philosophers have been wicked; let the works of the heroic poets be burned, for with their satires and verses they reprehend vices; let medicine be blamed, for men discover poisons; let eloquence be called useless, for at times it has been so arrogant that it has placed in doubt the recognised truth; let not arms be forged, for robbers and murderers use them; let not houses be built, for they can fall upon the inhabitants; let variety of victuals be prohibited, for they are wont to be a cause of illness; let no one seek to have children, for Œdipus, driven by cruellest madness, slew his father, and Orestes smote the breast of his own mother; let fire be counted evil, for it is wont to burn houses and to consume cities; let water be despised, for with it all the earth was flooded; in a word, let all elements be condemned, for they can be perversely used by some perverse persons. And in this manner every good thing can be changed to evil, and from it can proceed evil effects, if placed in the hands of those who, as irrational beings, allow themselves to be governed by the appetite, without moderation. The ancient Carthage, rival of the Roman Empire, warlike Numantia, Corinth made so fair, proud Thebes, and learned Athens, and God's city Jerusalem, which were conquered and laid desolate—are we to say therefore that love was the cause of their destruction and ruin? Hence those who are accustomed to speak ill of love, ought to speak ill of their own selves, for the gifts of love, if they are used with moderation, are worthy of perpetual praise; since in everything the mean was always praised, or the extreme was blamed, for if we embrace virtue beyond what suffices, the wise man will win the name of fool, and the just of iniquitous. It was the opinion of the ancient tragedian Chremes, that, as wine mixed with water is good, so love, when moderate, is profitable, but it is the contrary when immoderate; the generation of rational animals and brutes would be naught if it did not proceed from love, and if it were wanting on earth, the latter would be deserted and empty. The ancients believed that love was the work of the gods, given for the preservation and care of mankind. But, coming to what you, Lenio, said of the sad and strange effects which love produces in loving breasts, keeping them ever in ceaseless tears, deep sighs, despairing fancies, without ever granting them an hour of repose—let us see perchance what thing can be desired in this life the attainment of which does not cost fatigue and toil; and the more valuable a thing is, the more one must suffer and does suffer for it. For desire presupposes a lack of the desired object, and until it is gained there must needs be disturbance in our mind. If then all human desires, without wholly attaining what they desire, can be rewarded and contented with a part of it being given them, and with all this it is compatible to follow them, how strange it is that to attain what cannot satisfy nor content the desire save with itself, one should suffer, weep, fear and hope? He who desires lordships, commands, honours, and riches, since he sees that he cannot reach the highest rank he would wish, when he succeeds in settling in some good position, is partly satisfied, for the hope which fails him of not being able to ascend further, makes him stop where he can, and where best he can. All this is the contrary in love, for love has no other reward nor satisfaction save love itself, and love itself is its own true reward; and for this reason it is impossible for the lover to be content till he clearly knows that he is truly loved, being assured of this by the loving tokens which they know. And so they value highly a pleasing glance, a pledge of any sort from their beloved, a trivial smile, or word, or jest they take for truth, as signs which are assuring them of the reward they desire; and so, whenever they see tokens contrary thereto, the lover is constrained to lament and grieve, without having moderation in his sorrows, since he cannot have it in his joys, when kind fortune and gentle love grant them to him. And, as it is a task of such difficulty to bring another's will to be one with mine, and to unite two souls in a knot and bond so indissoluble that the thoughts of the two may be one and all their deeds one, it is not strange that to achieve so lofty a purpose one should suffer more than for aught else, since, after it is achieved, it satisfies and gladdens beyond all things that are desired in this life. Not always are the tears of lovers shed with cause and reason, nor their sighs scattered, for if all their tears and sighs were caused by seeing that their wish is not responded to as is due, and with the reward that is sought for, it would be necessary to consider first whither they raised their fancy, and if they exalted it higher than their merit attains, it is no wonder that, like some new Icarus, they fall consumed into the river of miseries; and for these love will not incur the blame, but their folly. With all this I do not deny, but affirm that the desire of gaining what is loved, must needs cause affliction, by reason of the want it presupposes, as I have already said at other times; but I also say that to attain it gives the greatest pleasure and happiness, like rest to the weary and health to the sick. Together with this I acknowledge that if lovers marked, as in the ancient custom, with white and black stones their sad or happy days, without any doubt the unhappy would be more; but I also recognise that the quality of one white stone alone would excel the quantity of countless black ones. And for a proof of this truth we see that lovers never repent of being lovers, nay, rather, if anyone should promise them to deliver them from love's disease, they would repel him as an enemy; for even to suffer it is pleasant to them; and therefore, oh lovers, let no fear prevent you from offering and dedicating yourselves to love what should seem to you most difficult, nor complain, nor repent, if you have raised things lowly to your height, for love makes the little equal to the sublime, the lesser to the greater; and with just resolve it tempers the various dispositions of lovers, when with pure affection they receive its grace in their hearts. Yield not to dangers, that the glory may be so great as to take away the feeling of every sorrow; and, as for the captains and emperors of old, as a reward for their toils and fatigues, triumphs were prepared according to the greatness of their victories, so for lovers are reserved a multitude of pleasures and joys; and as with the former their glorious reception made them forget all their past troubles and griefs, so with the lover, when beloved by the beloved, his dreadful dreams, his uncertain sleep, his waking nights, his restless days are turned to highest peace and happiness. Hence, Lenio, if you condemn them for their sad effects, you should acquit them for their pleasing and happy ones. And as for the interpretation you gave of Cupid's form, I am going to say that you are almost as wrong in it as in the other things you have said against love. For to picture him a boy, blind, naked, with wings and arrows, means nothing but that the lover must be a boy in not having a double character, but one pure and simple; he must be blind to every other object that might offer itself to him, save that which he has already been able to see and yield to, naked because he must have naught save what belongs to her he loves, having wings of swiftness to be ready for all that may be commanded him on her part, while he is depicted with arrows, for the wound of the loving breast must needs be deep and hidden, and that scarce may be disclosed save to the very cause that is to cure it. That love should strike with two arrows which operate in different ways, is to show us that in perfect love there must be no mean between loving and not loving at the same moment, but that the lover must love whole-heartedly without any admixture of lukewarmness. Finally, Lenio, this love it is which, if it destroyed the Trojans, made the Greeks great; if it caused the works of Carthage to cease, it caused the buildings of Rome to grow; if it took away the kingdom from Tarquin, it brought back the republic to freedom. Though I might here adduce many examples opposed to those I have adduced of the good effects love causes, I do not wish to busy myself with them, since they are so well known of themselves. I only wish to ask you to be disposed to believe what I have shown and to have patience to hear a song of mine which seems as if it was composed in rivalry of yours; and if by it and by what I have said to you, you should not be willing to be brought over to love's side, and it should seem to you that you are not satisfied of the truths I have declared concerning it, if the present time permits it, or at any other you might choose and indicate, I promise you to satisfy all the replies and arguments you might wish to express in opposition to mine; and, for the present, attend to me and listen: