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The Fourth Treatise - CHAPTER I
Soft rhymes of love I used to find
Within my thought, I now must leave,
Not without hope to turn to them again;
But signs of a disdainful mind
That in my Lady I perceive
Have closed the way to my accustomed strain.
And since time suits me now to wait,
I put away the softer style
Proper to love; rhyme subtle and severe
Shall tell how Nobleman's estate
Is won by worth, hold false and vile
The judgment that from wealth derives a Peer.
First calling on that Lord
Who dwells within her eyes,
Containing whom, my Lady learnt
Herself to love and prize.
One raised to Empire held,
As far as he could see,
Descent of wealth, and generous ways,
To make Nobility.
Another, lightly wise,
That saying turned aside,
Perchance for want of generous ways
The second source denied.
And followers of him
Are all the men who rate
Those noble in whose families
The wealth has long been great.
And so long among us
The falsehood has had sway,
That men call him a Nobleman,
Though worthless, who can say.
I nephew am, or son,
Of one worth such a sum;
But he who sees the Truth may know
How vile he has become
To whom the Truth was shown,
Who from the Truth has fled,
And though he walks upon the earth
Is counted with the dead:
Whoever shall define
The man a living tree
Will speak untruth and less than truth,
Though more he may not see.
The Emperor so erred;
First set the false in view,
Proceeding, on the other side,
To what was less than true.
For riches make not worth
Although they can defile:
Nor can their want take worth away:
They are by nature vile.
No painter gives a form
That is not of his knowing;
No tower leans above a stream
That far away is flowing.
How vile and incomplete
Wealth is, let this declare
However great the heap may be
It brings no peace, but care.
And hence the upright mind,
To its own purpose true,
Stands firm although the flood of wealth
Sweep onward out of view
They will not have the vile
Turn noble, nor descent
From parent vile produce a race
For ever eminent.
Yet this, they say, can be,
Their reason halts behind,
Since time they suit to noble birth
By course of time defined.
It follows then from this
That all are high or base,
Or that in Time there never was
Beginning to our race.
But that I cannot hold,
Nor yet, if Christians, they;
Sound intellect reproves their words
As false, and turns away.
And now I seek to tell,
As it appears to me,
What is, whence comes, what signs attest
A true Nobility.
I say that from one root
Each Virtue firstly springs,
Virtue, I mean, that Happiness
To man, by action, brings.
This, as the Ethics teach,
Is habit of right choice
That holds the means between extremes,
So spake that noble voice.
Nobility by right
No other sense has had
Than to import its subject's good,
As vileness makes him bad.
Such virtue shows its good
To others' intellect,
For when two things agree in one,
Producing one effect.
One must from other come,
Or each one from a third,
If each be as each, and more, then one
From the other is inferred.
Where Virtue is, there is
A Nobleman, although
Not where there is a Nobleman
Must Virtue be also.
So likewise that is Heaven
Wherein a star is hung,
But Heaven may be starless; so
In women and the young
A modesty is seen,
Not virtue, noble yet;
Comes virtue from what's noble, as
From black comes violet;
Or from the parent root
It springs, as said before,
And so let no one vaunt that him.
A noble mother bore.
They are as Gods whom Grace
Has placed beyond all sin:
God only gives it to the Soul
That He finds pure within.
That seed of Happiness
Falls in the hearts of few,
Planted by God within the Souls
Spread to receive His dew.
Souls whom this Grace adorns
Declare it in each breath,
From birth that joins the flesh and soul
They show it until death.
In Childhood they obey,
Are gentle, modest, heed
To furnish Virtue's person with
The graces it may need.
Are temperate in Youth,
And resolutely strong,
Love much, win praise for courtesy,
Are loyal, hating wrong.
Are prudent in their Age,
And generous and just,
And glad at heart to hear and speak
When good to man's discussed.
The fourth part of their life
Weds them again to God,
They wait, and contemplate the end,
And bless the paths they trod.
How many are deceived! My Song,
Against the strayers: when you reach
Our Lady, hide not from her that your end
Is labour that would lessen wrong,
And tell her too, in trusty speech,
I travel ever talking of your Friend.
Love, according to the unanimous opinion of the wise men who discourse
of him, and as by experience we see continually, is that which brings
together and unites the lover with the beloved; wherefore Pythagoras
says, "In friendship many become one."
And the things which are united naturally communicate their qualities
to each other, insomuch that sometimes it happens that one is wholly
changed into the nature of the other, the result being that the
passions of the beloved person enter into the person of the lover, so
that the love of the one is communicated to the other, and so likewise
hatred, desire, and every other passion; wherefore the friends of the
one are beloved by the other, and the enemies hated; and so in the
Greek proverb it is said: "With friends all things ought to be in
common."
Wherefore I, having made a friend of this Lady, mentioned above in the
truthful exposition, began to love and to hate according to her love
and her hatred. I then began to love the followers of Truth, and to
hate the followers of Error and Falsehood, even as she does. But since
each thing is to be loved for itself and none are to be hated except
for excess of evil, it is reasonable and upright to hate not the
things, but the evil in the things, and to endeavour to distinguish
between these. And if any person has this intention, my most excellent
Lady understands especially how to distinguish the evil in anything,
which is the cause of hate; since in her is all Reason, and in her is
the fountain-head of all uprightness.
I, following her as much as I could in her work as in her love,
abominated and despised the errors of the people with infamy or
reproach, not cast on those lost in error, but on the errors
themselves; by blaming which, I thought to create displeasure and to
separate the displeased ones from those faults in them which were
hated by me. Amongst which errors one especially I reproved, which,
because it is hurtful and dangerous not only to those who remain in
it, but also to others who reprove it, I separate it from them and
condemn.
This is the error concerning Human Goodness, which, inasmuch as it is
sown in us by Nature, ought to be termed Nobility; which error was so
strongly entrenched by evil custom and by weak intellect that the
opinion of almost all people was falsified or deceived by it; and from
the false opinion sprang false judgments, and from false judgments
sprang unjust reverence and unjust contempt; wherefore the good were
held in vile disdain, and the evil were honoured and exalted. This was
the worst confusion in the world; even as he can see who looks subtly
at that which may result from it. And though it seemed that this my
Lady had somewhat changed her sweet countenance towards me, especially
where I gazed and sought to discover whether the first Matter of the
Elements was created by God, for which reason I strengthened myself to
frequent her presence a little, as if remaining there with her assent,
I began to consider in my mind the fault of man concerning the said
error. And to shun sloth, which is an especial enemy of this Lady, and
to describe or state this error very clearly, this error which robs
her of so many friends, I proposed to cry aloud to the people who are
walking in the path of evil, in order that they might direct their
steps to the right road; and I began a Song, in the beginning of which
I said, "Soft rhymes of love I used to find," wherein I intend to lead
the people back into the right path, the path of right knowledge
concerning true Nobility, as by the knowledge of its text, to the
explanation of which I now turn my attention, any one will be able to
perceive.
And since the intention of this Song is directed to a remedy so
requisite, it was not well to speak under any figure of speech; but it
was needful to prepare this medicine speedily, that speedy might be
the restoration to health, which, being so corrupted, hastened to a
hideous death. It will not, then, be requisite in the exposition of
this Song to unveil any allegory, but simply to discuss its meaning
according to the letter. By my Lady I always mean her who is spoken of
in the preceding Song, that is to say, that Light of supreme virtue,
Philosophy, whose rays cause the flowers of true Nobility to blossom
forth in mankind and to bear fruit in the sons of men; concerning
which true Nobility the proposed Song fully intends to treat. _
Read next: The Fourth Treatise: CHAPTER II
Read previous: The Third Treatise: CHAPTER XV
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