Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > Dialogue on the Infinity of Love > Status Update

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.