noble noose,
Beauty enkindles me, and pureness binds,
So that in flames and servitude I take delight,
Liberty takes flight and dreads the ice.
Such is the heat, that though I burn yet am I not destroyed,
The tie is such, the world with me gives praise.
Fear cannot freeze, nor pain unshackle me;
For soothing is the ardour, sweet the smart.
So high the light that burns me I discern,
And of so rich a thread the noose contrived
That, thought being born, the longing dies.
And since, within my heart shines such pure flames,
And so supreme a tie compels my will,
Let my shade serve, and let my ashes burn.

All the loves, if they be heroic and not purely animal, or what is
called natural, and slaves to generation, as instruments of nature in a
certain way, have for object the divinity, tend towards divine beauty,
which first is communicated to souls and shines in them, and from them,
or rather through them, it is communicated to bodies; whence it is that
well-ordered affection loves the body or corporeal beauty, insomuch as
it is an indication of beauty of spirit. Thus that which causes the
attraction of love to the body is a certain spirituality which we see in
it, and which is called beauty, and which does not consist in major or
minor dimensions, nor in determined colours or forms, but in harmony and
consonance of members and colours. This shows an affinity between the
spirit and the most acute and penetrative senses; whence it follows that
such become more easily and intensely enamoured, and also more easily
and intensely disgusted, which might be through a change of the deformed
spirit, which in some gesture and expressed intention reveals itself in
such wise that this deformity extends from the soul to the body, and
makes it appear no longer beautiful as before. The beauty, then, of the
body has power to kindle, but not to bind, and the lover, unless aided
by the graces of the spirit, such as purity, gratitude, courtesy,
circumspection, is unable to escape. Therefore, said I, beautiful is
that fire which burns me, and noble that tie which binds.

CIC. I do not believe it is always like that, Tansillo; because,
sometimes, notwithstanding that we discover the spirit to be vicious, we
remain heated and entangled; so that, although reason perceives the evil
and unworthiness of such a love, it yet has not power to alienate the
disordered appetite. In this disposition, I b