ove? If this
presence, this object, is his empire, and appears none other than the
empire of Love, the rule of Love and its own rule; the impression of
Love which appears in the substance of my heart, is then no other
impression than its own, and therefore after having said "Noble face,"
replies "Inconstant Love."[A]

[A] Vago amore.

=Second Dialogue.=

TANSILLO.

Now begins the enthusiast to display the affections and uncover the
wounds which are for a sign in his body, and in substance or essence in
his soul, and he says thus:

9.

Of Love the standard-bearer I;
My hopes are ice, and glowing my desires.
At once I tremble, sparkle, freeze, and burn;
Am mute, and fill the air with clamorous plaints.
Water my eyes distil, sparks from my heart.
I live, I die, make merry and lament.
Living the waters, the burning never dies,
For in my eyes is Thetys, and Vulcan in my heart.
Others I love; myself I hate.
If I be winged, others are changed to stone;
They high as heaven, if I be lowly set.
I cease not to pursue, they ever flee away;
If I do call, yet none will answer me.
The more I search, the more is hid from me.

In accordance with this, I will continue with that which just before I
said to thee, that one should not strive so hard to prove that which is
so very evident--namely, that there is nothing pure and unalloyed; and
some have said that no mixed thing is a real entity, as alloyed gold is
not real gold, manufactured wine is not real simple wine. Almost all
things are made up of opposites, whence it comes that the success of our
affections, through the mixture that is in things, can afford no
pleasure without some bitterness; and more than this, I will say, that
were it not for the bitter, there would be no sweet; seeing that it is
through fatigue that we find pleasure in repose; separation is the cause
of our pleasure in union; and, examining generally, we shall ever find
that one opposite is the reason that the other opposite pleases and is
desired.

CIC. Then there is no delight without the contrary?

TANS. Certainly not; as without the opposite there is no pain; as is
shown by that golden Pythagorean poet when he says:

Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, nec
Respiciunt, clausae tenebris, e carcere caeco.

This, then, is what the mixture of things causes, and hence it is that
no one is pleased with his own state, exc