Chapter 8 No.8

Ah me! oppress some other, spiteful Fate!

Jealousy, get thee hence-begone! away!

These may suffice to show me all the grace

Of changeful Love, and of that noble face.

He takes my life, she gives me death,

She wings, he burns my heart,

He murders it, and she revives the soul:

My succour she, my grievous burden he!

But what say I of Love?

If he and she one subject be, or form,

If with one empire and one rule they stamp

One sole impression in my heart of hearts,

Then are they two, yet one, on which do wait

The mirth and melancholy of my state!

Four beginnings and extremes of two opposites he would reduce to two beginnings and one opposite: he says, then, oppress others-that is, let it suffice thee, O my Fate! that thou hast so much oppressed me; and since thou canst not exist without exercise of thyself, turn elsewhere thy anger. Get thee hence out of the world, thou Jealousy, because one of those two others which remain can supply your functions and offices; yet, O Fate! thou art none other than my love; and thou, Jealousy, art not external to the substance of the same. He alone, then, remains to deprive me of life, to burn me, to give me death, and to be to me the burden of my bones; for he delivers me from death-wings, enlivens, and sustains. Then two beginnings and one opposite he reduces to one beginning and one result, exclaiming: But what do I say of Love? If this presence, this object, is his empire, and appears none other than the empire of Love, the rule of Love and its own rule; the impression of Love which appears in the substance of my heart, is then no other impression than its own, and therefore after having said "Noble face," replies "Inconstant Love."[A]

[A] Vago amore.

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Second Dialogue.

Tansillo.

Now begins the enthusiast to display the affections and uncover the wounds which are for a sign in his body, and in substance or essence in his soul, and he says thus: