CES. Read the sonnet!
MAR. I will do so:
47.
Writ by the hand of Love may each behold
Upon my face the story of my woes.
But thou, so that thy pride no curb may know,
And I, unhappy one, eternally might rest,
Thou dost torment, by hiding from my view
Those lovely lights beneath the beauteous lids.
Therefore the troubled sky's no more serene,
Nor hostile baleful shadows fall away.
By thine own beauty, by this love of mine
(So great that e'en with this it may compare),
Render thyself, oh Goddess, unto pity!
Prolong no more this all-unmeasured woe,
Ill-timed reward for such a love as this.
Let not such rigour with such splendour mate
If it import thee that I live!
Open, oh lady, the portals of thine eyes,
And look on me if thou wouldst give me death!
Here, the face upon which the story of his woes appears is the soul; in
so far as it is open to receive those superior gifts, for the which it
has a potential aptitude, without the fulness of perfection and act
which waits for the dew of heaven. Thus was it well said: Anima mea
sicut terra sine aqua tibi; and again: Os meum operui; and again:
Spiritum, quia mandata tua desiderabam. Then "pride which knows no curb"
is said in metaphor and similitude, as God is sometimes said to be
jealous, angry, or that He sleeps, and that signifies the difficulty
with which He grants so much even as to show his shoulders, which is the
making himself known by means of posterior things and effects.
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