Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > The Heroic Enthusiasts (Gli Eroici Furori) Part the First > Status Update

Jealousy torments, because although she is the daughter of Love, and is derived from him, and is his companion who always goes with him, and is a sign of the same, being understood as a necessary consequence wherever love is found, yet, notwithstanding its kinship, jealousy comes to trouble and poisons all that it finds of beautiful and of good in Love.

Fate vexes and grieves by undesirable and unfortunate events, or because it makes the subject feel unworthy of the object, and out of proportion with the dignity of the latter, or because a perfect sympathy does not exist, or for other reasons and obstacles that arise. The object satisfies the subject, which is nourished by no other, seeks no other, is occupied by no other, and banishes every other thought.

Some are called in vain to put in a ready appearance, and are chiefly those which proceed from the lower instincts, and which obey the reason either not at all, or very little; and forcing himself to prevent their actions and condemn those which cannot be prevented, he shows himself as one who would kill those and banish these, now by the scourge of scorn, now by the sword of anger.

He, with the sound of the trumpet—that is, by fixed resolve—calls all the warriors or invokes all the powers; called warriors because they are in continual strife and opposition; and their affections, which are all contrary thoughts, some towards one and some towards the other side inclining, and he tries to bring them all under one flag—one settled end and aim.

1 object only I regard, 1 face alone my mind does fill, 1 beauty keeps me fixed and still; 1 arrow pierced my heart, and 1The fire with which alone I burn, And towards one paradise I turn.

This captain is the human will, which dwells in the depths of the soul with the small helm of reason to govern and guide the interior powers against the wave of natural impulses.

The captain calls his warriors to arms, & at the trumpet's sound they all Under 1 sign & standard come. But yet 4 some in vain the call is heard, Heedless & unprepared, they mind it not. 1 foe he kills, & the insane unborn, He banishes from out the camp in scorn. And thus z soul, when foiled her high designs, Would have all those opponents dead or gone;

Thou dost well conclude that poetry is not born in rules, or only slightly and accidentally so; the rules are derived from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets.

oscillating between the two, he remained neutral and inactive, rather than operative

It is to be supposed that he oftimes & for divers reasons had repulsed the Muses; 1, because he could not be idle as a priest of the Muses should be, for idleness cannot exist there, where the ministers and servants of envy, ignorance, and malignity are to be combated. 2, he could not force himself to the study of philosophies, which though they be not the most mature, yet ought, as kindred Muses, to precede them.

It means the difference that exists between the lower intellect called the intellect of pwr, either possible or passve, which is uncrtn, multifarious, and multiform, and the higher intellect, which, perhaps, is like that which is said by the Peripatetics to be the lwst of the intelligences, and which exerts an immediate influence ovr all the individls of the hmn species, and is called the active and acting intellect.