The Banquet · Dante Alighieri
CHAPTER VII.
According to that which is said above in the third chapter of this treatise, in order to understand well the first part of the Song I comment on, it is requisite to discourse of those Heavens, and of their Movers; and in the three preceding chapters this has been discussed. I say, then, to those whom I proved to be Movers of the Heaven of Venus: "Ye who, with thought intent" (_i.e._, with the intellect alone, as is said above), "the third Heaven move, Hear reasoning that is within my heart;" and I do not say "Hear" because they hear any sound, for they have no sense of hearing; but I say "Hear," meaning with that hearing which they have, which is of the understanding through the intellect. I say, "Hear reasoning that is within my heart," within me, which as yet has not appeared externally. It is to be known that throughout this Song, according to the one sense (the Literal), and the other sense (the Allegorical), the Heart is concerned with the secret within, and not any other special part of the soul or body. When I have called them to hear that which I wish to say, I assign two reasons why I ought fitly to speak to them.
To you I'll tell the heart's new cares: always The sad Soul weeps within it, and there hears Voice of a Spirit that condemns her tears, A Spirit that descends through your star's rays. And to the full understanding of these words, I say that this Spirit is no other than a frequent thought how to commend and beautify this new Lady. And this Soul is no other than another thought, accompanied with acquiescence, which, repudiating that Spirit, commends and beautifies the memory of that glorious Beatrice. But, again, because the last sentiment of the mind, acquiescence, is held by that thought which memory assisted, I call it the Soul, and the other the Spirit; as we are accustomed to call the City those who hold it, and not those who fight it, although the one and the other may be citizens. I say also, that this Spirit comes on the rays of the star, because one desires to know that the rays of each Heaven are the way by which their virtue descends into things here below. And since the rays are no other than a light which comes from the source of Light through the air even to the thing illuminated, and the light has no source except the star, because the other Heaven is transparent, I say not that this Spirit, this thought, comes from their Heaven entirely, but from their star. And their star, through the nobility of its Movers, is of such virtue that in our souls, and in other things, it has very great power, notwithstanding that it is so far from us, about one hundred and sixty-seven times farther than it is to the centre of the Earth, which is three thousand two hundred and fifty miles. And this is the Literal exposition of the first part of the Song.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.