CES. Why, importuned by thoughts, does he continually gaze at that
splendour which destroys him, and yet does not satisfy him, as it
torments him ever so fiercely?
MAR. Because all our consolations in this state of controversy are not
without their discouragements, however vast those consolations may be.
Just as the fear of a king for the loss of his kingdom, is greater than
that of a mendicant who is in peril of losing ten farthings; and more
important is the care of a prince over a republic, than that of a rustic
over a herd of swine; as perchance the pleasures and delights of the one
are greater than the pleasures and delights of the other. Therefore the
loving and aspiring higher, brings with it greater glory and majesty,
with more care, thought, and pain: I mean in this state, where the one
opposite is always joined to the other, finding the greatest contrariety
always in the same genus, and consequently about the same subject,
although the opposites cannot be together. And thus proportionally in
the love of the supernal Eros, as the Epicurean poet declares of vulgar
and animal desire when he says:--
Fluctuat incertis erroribus ardor amantum,
Nec constat, quid primum oculis, manibusque fruantur:
Quod petiere, premunt arte, faciuntque dolorem
Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis,
Osculaque adfigunt, quia non est pura voluptas,
Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere id ipsum,
Quodcunque est, rabies, unde illa haec germina surgunt.
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