ational faculty, which is a
mixture of all, like that in which the one agrees with the many,
sameness with variety, movement with fixedness, the inferior with the
superior. Now these transmutations and conversions are symbolized in the
wheel of metamorphosis, where man sits on the upper part, a beast lies
at the bottom, a half-man, half-beast descends from the left, and a
half-beast, half-man ascends from the right. This transmutation is shown
where Jove, according to the diversity of the affections and the
behaviour of those towards inferior things, invests himself with divers
figures, entering into the form of beasts; and so also the other gods
transmigrate into base and alien forms. And, on the contrary, through
the knowledge of their own nobility, they re-take their own divine form;
as the passionate hero, raising himself through conceived kinds of
divine beauty and goodness, with the wings of the intellect and rational
will, rises to the divinity, leaving the form of the lower subject. And
therefore he said, "I become from subject viler still, a god. From an
inferior thing do change me to a god."

=Fourth Dialogue.=

TANSILLO.

Thus is described the discourse of heroic love, in all which tends to
its own object, which is the highest good; and heroic intellect, which
devotes itself to the study of its own object, which is the primal
verity, or absolute truth. Now the first discourse holds the sum of this
and the intention, the order of which is described in five others
following:

18.

To the woods, the mastiffs and the greyhounds young Actaeon leads,
When destiny directs him into the doubtful and neglected way,
Upon the track of savage beasts in forests wild.
And here, between the waters, he sees a bust and face more beautiful
than e'er was seen
By mortal or divine, of scarlet, alabaster, and fine gold;
He sees, and the great hunter straight becomes that which he hunts.
The stag, that towards still thicker shades now goes with lighter
steps,
His own great dogs swiftly devour.
So I extend my thoughts to higher prey, and these
Now turning on me give me death with cruel savage bite.

Actaeon signifies the intellect, intent on the pursuit of divine wisdom
and the comprehension of divine beauty. He lets loose the mastiffs and
the greyhounds, of whom the latter are more swift and the former more
strong, because the operation of the intellect pr