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The Third Treatise - CHAPTER IV
Now that the two ineffable parts of this matter have been discussed,
we must proceed to discuss words that describe my insufficiency.
I say, then, that my insufficiency arises from a double cause, even as
in a twofold manner the exalted nature of my Lady surpasses all, in
the way which has been told. For I am compelled, by the poverty of my
intellect, to omit much of the truth concerning her which shone into
my mind like rays of light, but which my mind receives like a
transparent body, unable to gather up the ends thereof and reflect
them back. And this I express in that following part: "First, all that
Reason cannot make its own I needs must leave." Then, when I say, "And
of what can be known," I say that not even to that which I do
understand am I sufficient, because my tongue is not so eloquent that
it could tell that which is discoursed in my thoughts concerning her.
It may be seen, therefore, that, with respect to the Truth, it is very
little that I shall say; and this redounds to her great praise, if
well considered, in that which was the main intention. And it is
possible to say that this form of speech came indeed from the workshop
of Rhetoric, which on every side lays its hand upon the main
intention. Then, when it says, "If my Song fail," I excuse myself for
my fault, which ought not, then, to be blamed when others see that my
words are far below the dignity of this Lady. And I say that, if the
defect is in my rhymes, that is, in my words, which are appointed to
discourse of her, for this are to be blamed the weakness of the
intellect and the abruptness of our speech: "blame wit and words,"
which are overpowered by the thought, so that they cannot follow it
entirely, especially there where the thought is born of love, because
there the Soul searches more deeply than elsewhere. It would be quite
possible for any one to say: Thou dost excuse and accuse thyself all
in one breath, which is a reason for blame, not for escape from blame,
inasmuch as the blame, which is mine, is cast on the intellect and on
the speech; for, if it be good, I ought to be praised for it in so
much as it is so; and if it be defective, I ought to be blamed. To
this it is possible to reply, briefly, that I do not accuse myself,
but that I excuse myself in truth. And therefore it is to be known,
according to the opinion of the Philosopher in the third book of the
Ethics, that man is worthy of praise or of blame only in those things
which it is in his power to do or not to do; but in those things over
which he has no power he deserves neither blame nor praise, since
either the praise or blame is to be attributed to some other, although
the things may be parts of the man himself. Therefore, we ought not to
blame the man because his body, from his birth, may be ugly, since it
was not in his power to make it beautiful; but our blame should fall
on the evil disposition of the matter whereof he is made, whose source
was a defect of Nature. And even so we ought not to praise the man for
the beauty of form which he may have from his birth, for he was not
the maker of it; but we ought to praise the artificer, that is, Human
Nature, who shapes her material into so much beauty when she is not
impeded. And therefore the priest said well to the Emperor who laughed
and scoffed at the ugliness of his body: "The Lord, He is God: It is
He that hath made us, and not we ourselves;" and these are the words
of the Prophet in a verse of the Psalms, written neither more nor less
than according to the reply of the Priest.
And therefore let the wicked evil-born ones perceive that, if they put
their chief care in the adornment of their persons, it must be with
all modesty; for to do that is no other than to adorn the work of
another, that is, Nature, and to abandon their own proper work.
Returning, then, to the proposition, I say that our intellect, through
defect of the power through which it sees organic power, that is, the
imagination, is not able to ascend to certain things, because the
imagination cannot help it and has not the wherewithal, such as are
the substances apart from matter, which (if we can have any knowledge
of them) we cannot fully comprehend.
And the man is not to blame for this, because he was not the maker of
this defect; nay, Universal Nature did this, which is God, who wills
that in this life we be without this light. And because He was the
cause, it would be presumptuous to argue concerning it. So that if my
earnest thought transported me into a place where my imagination
failed my intellect, I was not to blame if I could not possibly
understand.
Again, a bound is set to our understanding in each operation thereof;
but not by us, but by Universal Nature; and therefore it is to be
known that the bounds of the understanding are wider in thought than
in speech, and wider in speech than in signs. Hence, if our thought,
not only that which fails in a perfect intellect, but also that which
in a perfect intellect attains its end, is the conqueror of speech, we
are not to blame, because we are not the makers of it. And therefore I
prove that I do truthfully excuse myself when I say: "Blame wit and
words, whose force Fails to tell all that I hear Love discourse;" for,
sufficiently clear ought to appear the good-will, which alone we
should regard in respect to merits that are human.
And thus is now explained the first principal part of this Song which
flows from my hand. _
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