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The Second Treatise - CHAPTER VIII
What I have said shows clearly enough the Literal meaning of the first
part. In the second, there is to be understood how it makes manifest
what I experienced from the struggle within me; and this part has two
divisions. In the first place it describes the quality of these
oppositions, according as their cause was within me. Then I narrate
what the one and the other voice of opposition said; and upon that
firstly which described what was being lost, in the passage which is
the second of that part and the third of the Song. In evidence, then,
of the meaning of the first division, it is to be known that things
must be named by that part of their form which is the noblest and
best, as Man by Reason, and not by Sense, nor by aught else which is
less noble; therefore, when one speaks of the living man, one should
understand the man using Reason, which is his especial Life, and is
the action of his noblest part. And, therefore, whoso departs from
Reason and uses only the Senses is not a living man, but a living
beast, as says that most excellent Boethius, "Let the Ass live."
Rightly I speak, because thought is the right act of reason, wherefore
the beasts who have it not do not think; and I speak not only of the
lesser beasts, but of those who have a human appearance with the
spirit of a sheep or of some other abominable beast. I say then:
"Thought that once fed my grieving heart"--thought, that is, of the
inner life--"was sweet" (sweet, insomuch as it is persuasive, that is,
pleasing, or beautiful, gentle, delightful); this thought often sped
away to the feet of the Father of those Spirits to whom I speak, that
is, God; that is to say, that I in thought contemplated the realm of
the Blessed. "Thought that once fled up to the Father's feet." And I
name the final cause immediately, because I ascended there above in
thought when I say, "There I beheld a Lady glorified," to let you
understand that I was certain, and am certain by its gracious
revelation, that she was in Heaven; wherefore I, thinking many times
how this was possible for me, went thither, rapt, as it were. Then
subsequently I speak of the effect of this thought, in order to let
you understand its sweetness, which was such that it made me desirous
of Death, that I also might go where she was gone. And of this I speak
there: "Of whom so sweetly it discoursed to me That the Soul said,
'With her would I might be!'" And this is the root of one of the
struggles which was in me. And it is to be known that here one terms
Thought, and not Soul, that which ascended to see that Blessed Spirit,
because it was an especial thought sent on that mission; the Soul is
understood, as is stated in the preceding chapter, as thought in
general, with acquiescence.
Then, when I say, "Now One appears that drives the thought aside," I
touch the root of the other struggle, saying how that previous thought
was wont to be the life of me, even as another appears, which makes
that one cease to be. I say, "drives the thought aside," in order to
show that one to be antagonistic, for naturally the opposing one
drives aside the other, and that which is driven appears to yield
through want of power. And I say that this thought, which newly
appears, is powerful in taking hold of me and in subduing my Soul,
saying that it "masters me with such effectual might" that the heart,
that is, my inner life, trembles so much that my countenance shows it
in some new appearance.
Subsequently I show the power of this new thought by its effect,
saying that it makes me "fix my regard" on a Lady, and speaks to me
words of allurement, that is to say, it reasons before the eyes of my
intelligent affection, in order the better to induce me, promising me
that the sight of her eyes is its salvation. And in order to make this
credible to the Soul experienced in love, it says that it is for no
one to gaze into the eyes of this woman who fears the anguish of
laboured sighs. And it is a beautiful mode of rhetoric when externally
it appears that you disembellish a thing, and yet really embellish it
within. This new thought of love could not induce my mind to consent,
except by discoursing of the virtue of the eyes of this fair Lady so
profoundly. _
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