hat this is referred to in the "Banquet" of Plato,
where it says that Love has inherited from his mother, Poverty, that
dried-up, thin, pale, bare-footed, and submissive condition without a
home, without anything, and through these is signified the torture of
the soul that is torn with contrary affections.

TANS. So it is; because the spirit, full of this enthusiasm, becomes
absorbed in profound thoughts, stricken with urgent cares, kindled with
fervent desires, excited by frequent crises: whence the soul, finding
itself in suspense, becomes less diligent and active in the government
of the body through the acts of the vegetative power; thus the body
becomes lean, ill-nourished, attenuated, poor in blood, and rich in
melancholy humours, and these, if they do not administer to the
disciplined soul, or to a clear and lucid spirit, may lead to insanity,
folly, and brutal fury, or at least to a certain disregard of self, and
a contempt of its own being, which is symbolized by Plato in the bare
feet. Love becomes subjected and flies suddenly down to earth when it is
attached to low things, but flies high when it is fixed upon more worthy
enterprises. In conclusion, whatever love it may be, it is ever
afflicted and tormented in such a way that it cannot fail to supply
material for the forge of Vulcan; because the soul, being a divine
thing, and by nature, not a servant but the mistress of corporeal
matter, she becomes troubled in that she voluntarily serves the body
wherein she finds nothing to satisfy her, and albeit, fixed in the thing
loved, yet now and then she becomes agitated, and fluctuates amidst the
waves of hope, fear, doubt, ardour, conscience, remorse, determination,
repentance, and other scourges, which are the bellows, the coals, the
forge, the hammer, the pincers, and other instruments which are found in
the workshop of the sordid grimy consort of Venus.

CIC. Enough has been said upon this subject. Let us see what follows.

XI.

TANS. Here is a golden apple, rich with various kinds of precious
enamel, and there is a legend about it which says, "Pulchriori detur."

CIC. The allusion to the fact of the three goddesses who submitted
themselves to the judgment of Paris is very common. But read the lines
which more specifically disclose the meaning of the present enthusiast.

TANS.:

35.

Venus, the goddess of the third heaven
(Mother of the archer blind, who conquers all),
She whose father