hat means it, Maecenas,
That none on earth contented with that fate appear,
Which Reason or Heaven has assigned to them?

In the same way he calls the object the highest beauty, as it is that
alone which has power of attracting him to itself; and thus he holds it
more worthy, more noble, and feels it predominant and superior as he
becomes subject and captive to it. "My death itself," he says of
Jealousy, because as Love has no more close companion than she, so also
he feels he has no greater enemy; as nothing is more hurtful to iron
than rust, which is produced by it.

CIC. Now, since you have begun so, continue to show bit by bit that
which remains.

TANS. So will I. He says next of Love: he shows me Paradise, in order to
prove that Love himself is not blind, and does not himself render any
lovers blind, except through the ignoble characteristics of the subject;
even as the birds of night become blind in the sunshine. As for himself,
Love brightens, clears, and opens the intellect, permeating all and
producing miraculous effects.

CIC. Much of this, it seems to me, the Nolano demonstrates in another
sonnet:

7.

Love, through whom high truth I do discern,
Thou openest the black diamond doors;
Through the eyes enters my deity, and through seeing
Is born, lives, is nourished, and has eternal reign;
Shows forth what heaven holds, earth and hell:
Makes present true images of the absent;
Gains strength: and drawing with straight aim,
Wounds, lays bare and frets the inmost heart.
Attend now, thou base hind unto the truth,
Bend down the ear to my unerring word;
Open, open, if thou canst the eyes, foolish perverted one!
Thou understanding little, call'st him child,
Because thou swiftly changest, fugitive he seems,
Thyself not seeing, call'st him blind.

Love shows Paradise in order that the highest things may be heard,
understood, and accomplished; or it makes the things loved, grand--at
least in appearance. He says, Fate takes love away; because, often in
spite of the lover, it does not concede, and that which he sees and
desires is distant and adverse to him. Every good he sets before me, he
says of the object, because that which is indicated by the finger of
Love seems to him the only thing, the principal, and the whole. "Steals
it from me," he says of Jealousy, not simply in order that it may not be
present to me; removing it from my eyesight, but