Fetid harpy! Tisiphone infernal!
Who steals and poisons others' good,
Under thy cruel breath does languish
The sweetest flower of all my hopes.
Proud of thyself, unlovely one,
Bird of sorrow and harbinger of ill,
The heart thou visitest by thousand doors;
If entrance unto thee could be denied,
The reign of Love would so much fairer be,
As would this world were death and hate away.

To the above is added, that Jealousy not only is sometimes the ruin and
death of the lover, but often kills Love itself, because Love comes to
be so much under its influence that it is impelled to despise the
object, and in fact becomes alienated from it, especially when it
engenders disdain.

CIC. Explain now the ideas which follow. Why is Love called the
"insensate boy"?

TANS. I will tell you. Love is called the insensate boy, not because he
is so of himself, but because he brings certain ones into subjection,
and dwells in such subjects, since the more intellectual and speculative
one is, the more Love raises the genius and purifies the intellect,
rendering it alert, studious, and circumspect, promoting a condition of
valorous animosity and an emulation of virtues and dignities by the
desire to please and to make itself worthy of the thing loved; others,
and they are the largest number, call him mad and foolish, because he
drives them distracted, and hurries them into excesses, by which the
spirit, soul, and body become sickly, and inept to consider and
distinguish that which is seemly from that which is distorted; thus
rendering them subject to scorn, derision, and reproach.

CIC. It is commonly said that love makes fools of the old and makes the
young wise.

TANS. That drawback does not happen to all the aged, nor that advantage
to all the young; the one is true of the weak, and the other of the
robust. One thing is certain, that he who loves wisely in youth will in
age not go astray. But derision is for those of mature age, into whose
hands Love puts the alphabet.

CIC. Tell me now why Fate is called blind and bad.

TANS. Again, blind and bad is not said of Destiny itself, because it is
of the same order and number and measure as the universe; but as to the
subjects it is said to be blind, for they are blind to fate, she being
so uncertain. So also is Fate said to be evil, because every living
mortal who laments and complains, blames her. As the Apulian poet says:

How is it, or w