"The more I feel the air beneath my feet
So much the more towards the wind I bend
My swiftest pinions
And spurn the world and up towards Heaven I go."

As every part of bodies and of their elements, the nearer they come to
their natural place, the greater the impetus and force with which they
move, until at last, whether they will or not, they must prevail. That
which we see then in the parts of bodies and in the bodies themselves we
ought also to allow of intellectual things towards their proper
objects, as their proper places, countries, and ends. Whence you may
easily comprehend the entire significance of the figure, the legend, and
the verses.

CES. So much so that whatsoever you might add thereto would appear to me
superfluous.

IX.

CES. Let us see what is here represented by those two radiating arrows
upon a target around which is written: Vicit instans.

MAR. The continual struggle in the soul of the enthusiast, the which, in
consequence of the long familiarity which it had with matter was hard
and incapable of being penetrated by the rays of the splendour of the
Divine intelligence and the species of the Divine goodness; during which
time, he says that the heart was enamelled with diamond, that is, the
affection was hard and not capable of being heated and penetrated, and
it rejected the blows of love which assailed it on innumerable sides.
That is, it did not feel itself wounded by those wounds of eternal life
of which the Psalmist speaks when he says: Vulnerasti cor meum, o
dilecta, vulnerasti cor meum. The which wounds are not from iron or
other material through the vigour and strength of nerves, but are darts
of Diana, or of Phoebus, that is, either from the goddess of the
deserts--of contemplation of truth, that is, from Diana, who is the
order of the second intelligences, which transfer the splendour received
from the first and communicate it to the others, who are deprived of a
more open vision; or else from the principal god Apollo, who with his
own, and not a borrowed splendour, sends his darts, that is, his rays,
so many and from such innumerable points, which are all the species of
things, which are indications of Divine goodness, intelligence, beauty,
and wisdom, according to the various degrees, from the simple
comprehension, to the becoming heroic enthusiasts; because the
adamantine subject does not reflect from its surface the impression of
the light, but, destroyed and overc