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The Second Treatise - CHAPTER X
Returning to the proposition, I say that in that verse which begins "A
foe so strong I find him that he destroys," I intend to make manifest
that which was discoursing in my Soul, the ancient thought against the
new; and first briefly I show the cause of its lamentation, when I
say: "This opposite now breaks the humble dream Of the crowned angel
in the glory-beam." This one is that especial thought of which it is
said above that it was wont to be the life of the sorrowing heart.
Then when I say, "Still, therefore, my Soul weeps," it is evident that
my Soul is still on its side, and speaks with sadness; and I say that
it speaks words of lamentation, as if it might wonder at the sudden
transformation, saying: "'The tender star,' It says, 'that once was my
consoler, flies.'" It can well say consoler, for in the great loss
which I sustained in the death of Beatrice this thought, which
ascended into Heaven, had given to my Soul much consolation.
Then afterwards I say, that all my thought, my Soul, of which I say,
"That troubled one," turns in excuse of itself, and speaks against the
eyes; and this is made evident there: "That troubled one asked, 'When
into thine eyes Looked she?'" And I say that she speaks of them and
against them three things: the first is, she blasphemes the hour when
this woman saw them. And here you must know, that although many things
in one hour can come into the eyes, truly that which comes by a
straight line into the point of the pupil, that truly one sees, and
that only is sealed in the imaginative part. And this is, because the
nerve by which the visible spirit runs is directed to that part, and
thereupon truly one eye cannot look on the eye of another so that it
is not seen by it; for as that which looks receives the form of the
pupil by a right line, so by that same line its form passes into that
eye which gazes. And many times in the direction of that line a shaft
flies from the bow of Love, with whom each weapon is light. Therefore,
when I ask, "When first into mine eyes looked she?" it is as much as
to ask, "When did her eyes and mine look into each other?"
The second point is in that which reproves their disobedience, when it
says, "Of her, why doubted they my words?" Then it proceeds to the
third thing and says that it is not right to reprove them for
precaution, but for their disobedience; for it says that, sometimes,
when speaking of this woman, it might be said, "Her eyes bear death to
such as I," if she could have opened the way of approach. And indeed
one ought to believe that my Soul knew of its own inclination ready to
receive the operation of this power, and therefore dreaded it; for the
act of the agent takes full effect in the patient who has the
inclination to receive it, as the Philosopher says in the second book
on the Soul. And, therefore, if wax could have the spirit of fear, it
would fear most to come into the rays of the Sun, which would not turn
it into stone, since its disposition is to yield to that strong
operation.
Lastly, the Soul reveals in its speech that their presumption had been
dangerous when it says, "Yet vainly warned, I gazed on her and die."
And thus it closes its speech, to which the new thought replies, as
will be declared in the following chapter. _
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