Status Updates From Dialogue on the Infinity of...

but, rather, one
indicates one nature and the other the lack of that nature, as we have in "alive"
and "dead," "night" and "day," "sighted' and "blind," and other such contraries.
With these, the rule always applies, because what is not alive is necessarily
dead, the man who cannot see is obviously blind, and when it is not daytime it
must be night time.

TULLIA: I can't follow that.
VARCHI: "Contraries of inclusion" are those that signify two contrary natures, such as "white" and "black." "sweet" and "bitter," "hard" and "soft," and the
like. The rule does not apply here, because not everything non-white is black,
nor is everything that is not sweet bitter, and so forth. "Opposites of exclusion," on the other hand, do not indicate two different natures,

They say and do the myriad strange things that the poets write about, especially Petrarch, who towers incomparably over all others in the description of the pangs of love.

Lovers entertain both hope and fear. Simultaneously, they feel great heat and excessive cold. They want and reject in equal measure, constantly grasping things but retaining nothing in their grip. They can see without eyes. They have no ears but can hear. They shout without a tongue. They fly without moving. They are alive while dying.

They can never be satisfied, as Boccaccio bears witness about himself in the introduction to his Decameron. This is the reason why people who are in love can be crying one minute and laughing the next. They can even be found laughing and crying at the same time. This phenomenon is amazing in itself and quite impossible for mere normal mortals!

TULLIA: Love is infinite potentially-not in actuality-for it is impossible to love with an end in sight. In other words, the desires of people in love are infinite, and they can never settle down after achieving something. This is because after obtaining it, they long for something else, and something else again, and something more after that. And so it goes on, one thing after the other.

So now you've been surprised!
VARCHI: What do you mean by "surprised">
TULLIA: Well, I mean that you shouldn't think of fobbing me off with
any counterfeit arguments! Because you have stated that you were talking as a
philosopher and not as a theologian. So now there will be no point in your
abandoning the philosophers to take refuge among the theologians.

ULLIA: I certainly used to believe, and I still do, in the theologians' affirmation that God is infinite. However, I had also learned that thinkers of the
peripatetic persuasion, who are followers of Aristotle (as I assume you are),
state that God is not infinite, on account of the fact that no single thing can be
infinite in any location in the universe. 33

TULLIA: Ah, Isee your point. What you mean is that while one loves, one
does not love within limits. But when one no longer loves, the issue simply
doesn't arise. This logic is truly manna from heaven! Now tell me: don't you believe there are some individuals who love, in order to achieve their own end, and then, when they have fulfilled that desire, love no more?

VARCHI: Just say what you yourself believe to be the truth, not what
other people say.
TULLIA: Well then, for my part I believe that beauty is the mother of all
forms of love.
VARCHI: Who, then, would be its father?
TULLIA: The knowledge of that beauty.

TULLIA: That seems to me quite implausible, as well as downright impossible. Youyourself would have to admit that at least the two are on a par, because the soul will exert the same power united with the body as it would by itself, being the same identical soul. Even if the body adds nothing to the soul, it still doesn't have to reduce it to any degree.

TULLIA: Is anyone ignorant of the fact that the whole, body and soul
taken together, is more noble and more perfect than the soul by itself?
VARCHI: Well, you, for one, seem to be in the dark about that.
TULLIA: Why?
VARCHI: Because the soul by itself is more perfect and nobler.

TULLIA: Because the loved one constitutes not just the efficient and formal cause of an act, but also the final one. And the final cause is the most noble of all causes. It leaves the role of material cause to the lover, and this is the least worthy form of causation.

VARCHI: Therefore He is both the lover and the beloved?
TULLIA: He is.
VARCHI: And which of the two do you consider the nobler, the lover or
the beloved?
TULLIA: Without doubt, it is the one who is loved.
VARCHI: Why?

VARCHI: We must trust reason, not authority. What I'm saying is that if you consider the same thing from different angles and relate it to a whole range of other objects, it can turn out to be more or less worthy than itself and, consequently, other than itself.
TULLIA: I'd like to see an example of this.
VARCHI: Is it not the case that God loves Himself?
TULLIA: Yes, that is so.

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prachtig dialoog, maar ze mogen minder klef doen.

"Varchi's statement is in general agreement with Leone Ebreo's conclusion that the beloved is love's father, while the lover's mind, which becomes impregnated with the semen of what is beautiful, becomes love's mother."
What a footnote. Renaissance gender thinking, I have missed you!