Of Love. (19)

AUTOB. After my father had thus delivered himself; Do you not perceive, said Soclarus, how, being fallen a second time into the same matter, you have as it were by force constrained yourself, and unjustly deprived us — if I may speak what I think — of that same sacred discourse which you were entering into? For as before you gave us a hint concerning Plato and the Egyptians, but passed them over as if it had been done against your will; so you do now again. Now as to what has been notably uttered by Plato, or rather by our Goddesses here (the Muses) through Plato’s mouth, do not trouble yourself to tell us this, even although we should request it. But whereas you have obscurely hinted that the fables of the Egyptians accord with Plato’s opinion concerning love, we know you have too great kindness for us to conceal your knowledge from us; and though it be but a little of those important matters, it shall suffice us. Thereupon the rest of the company declaring their readiness to give attention, my father thus began: The Egyptians, said he, and also the Grecians set up two Deities of love; the one vulgar, the other celestial; to which they add a third, which they believe to be the sun; and as for Venus, they pay her a very great veneration, We ourselves also do find that there is a great affinity and resemblance between the sun and the God of Love. For neither of them is material fire, as some conjecture. All that we acknowledge is only this, that there is a certain soft and generative heat and warmth proceeding from the sun, which affords to the body nourishment, light, and relaxation of cold; whereas that warmth which comes from love works the same effects in the soul. And as the sun breaking forth from the clouds and after a thick fog is much hotter; so love, after passionate anger and jealousies are over, and the beloved one is again reconciled, grows more delightful and fervent. Moreover, as some believe the sun to be kindled and extinguished, they also imagine the same things concerning love, as being mortal and unstable. For neither can a constitution not enured to exercise endure the sun, nor the disposition of an illiterate and ill-tutored soul brook love without trouble and pain; for both are alike distempered and diseased, for which they lay the blame upon the power of the God, and not their own weakness. Herein only there may seem to be some difference between them; for that the sun displays to the sight upon the earth both beauty and deformity at once, but love is a luminary that affords us the view of beautiful objects only, and persuades lovers to cast their eyes only upon what is pleasing and delightful, and with a careless eye to overlook all other things. On the other side, they that attribute the name of Venus to the moon, although they have no convincing proof, still have hit upon a certain similarity. For that the moon is celestial and divine, and the region of mixture between mortal and immortal; but it is weak of itself, obscure and dark without the presence of the sun; as Venus is where love is absent. Therefore more properly and with more probability the moon is likened to Venus, and the sun to Love, rather than to any other of the Gods.

AUTOB. Nevertheless, we must not therefore say they are all one. For neither are the soul and body the same, but distinct; as the sun is visible, but love is perceptible only by sense. And if it might not be thought too harsh a saying, a man might affirm that the sun and love act contrary to one another. For the sun diverts the understanding front things intelligible to sensible objects, alluring and fascinating the sight with the grace and splendor of his rays, and persuading us to search for other things, and even for truth itself, within and about himself, and nowhere else. And we appear to be passionately in love with the sun, because, as Euripides says,

He always on the earth displays

glory of his burning rays,

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AUTOB. for want of our knowledge of another life, or rather, through our forgetfulness of those things which love calls to our remembrance. For as, when we are newly awaked and come into a bright and dazzling light, we forget whatever appeared to the soul in our dreams; so the sun seems to stupefy our recollection and impoison our understanding, when we change from the former life and enter this world, so that in our pleasure and admiration we forget all other considerations besides that of the present life. Though there indeed are the real substances proper for the contemplation of the soul; here, as in sleep, it embraces only dreams, and gazes in admiration and astonishment at what appears to it most beautiful and divine, while

Fallacious charming dreams about it fly; —

AUTOB. it being persuaded that here every thing is goodly and highly to be prized, unless it happens upon some divine and chaste love to be its physician and preserver. This love, entering through the body, becomes a guide to lead the soul from the world below to truth and the fields of truth, where full, pure, deceitless beauty dwells; and leading forth and guiding upward those that now after a long time are eager to embrace and live with such beauty, it stands by them, like a friendly mystagogue at the sacred ceremonies of initiation. But no sooner is the soul sent from thence again, but love is no longer able to make her approaches of herself, but by the body. And therefore as geometricians, when children are not able of themselves to apprehend the intelligible ideas of incorporeal and impassible substance, form and set before their eyes the tangible and visible imitations of spheres, cubes, and dodecahedrons; in like manner celestial love, having framed lovely mirrors to represent lovely objects, — things mortal and passible to represent things divine, and sensible objects to represent those perceptible only to the eye of reason, — shows them to us glittering in the forms, colors, and shape of youth in its prime, and first insensibly moves the memory inflamed by the sight of these objects.

AUTOB. Whence it comes to pass that some, through the stupidity of their friends and acquaintance, endeavoring by force and against reason to extinguish that flame, have enjoyed nothing of true benefit thereby, but only either disquieted themselves with smoke and trouble, or else rushing headlong into obscure and irregular pleasures, obstinately cast themselves away. But as many as by sober and modest ratiocination have sincerely extinguished the raging heat of the fire, and left behind only a warm and glowing heat in the soul, — which causes no violent earthquake, as it was once called, rousing the seed and causing a gliding of atoms compressed by smoothness and titillation, but a wonderful and engendering diffusion, as in a blossoming and well-nourished plant, which opens the pores of obedience and affection, — these, I say, in a short time passing by the bodies of those whom they love, penetrate more inwardly and fall to admire their manners and dispositions; and calling off their eyes from the body, they converse together, and contemplate one another in their discourses and in their actions, provided there be but the least scrip or appearance of beauty in the understanding. If not, they let them go, and turn their affections upon others, like bees that will not fasten upon many plants and flowers, because they cannot gather honey from them. But where they find any footstep, any emanation, any resemblance of a divinity, ravished with delight and admiration as they recall it to memory, they attract it to themselves, and are revived by striving to attain to what is truly amiable, happy, and beloved by all mankind.