r miseries, blinds us to celestial
beauty and makes us follow carnal lust. Yet what is best in sexual love
is the radiance of heavenly beauty shining through the form of flesh.
This sonnet receives abundant illustration in Michael Angelo's poems.

XI, XII. Two sonnets on the condition of the philosopher in a world
that understands him not. The first expresses that sense of inborn
royalty which sustained Campanella through his long martyrdom. The
second expands the picture drawn of the philosopher in Plato's
_Republic_ after his return to the cave from the region of truth.

XIII. Campanella frequently expressed his theological fatalism by this
metaphor of a comedy. God wrote the drama which men have to play. In
this life we cannot understand our parts. We act what is appointed for
us, and it is only when the comedy is finished, that we shall see how
good and evil, happiness and misery, were all needed by the great life
of the universe. The following stanza from one of his Canzoni may be
cited in illustration:

War, ignorance, fraud, tyranny,
Death, homicide, abortion, woe--
These to the world are fair, as we
Reckon the chase or gladiatorial show
To pile our hearth we fell the tree,
Kill bird or beast our strength to stay,
The vines, the hives our wants obey--
Like spiders spreading nets, we take and slay
As tragedy gives men delight,
So the exchange of death and strife
Still yields a pleasure infinite
To the great world's triumphant life
Nay seeming ugliness and pain
Avert returning Chaos' reign--
Thus the whole world's a comedy,
And they who by philosophy
Unite themselves to God, will see
In ugliness and evil nought
But beauteous masks--oh, mirthful thought!

XIV. The same theme is continued with a further development. Men among
themselves play their own comedy, but do not rightly assign the parts.
They make kings of slavish souls, and elevate the impious to the rank
of saints. They ignore their true and natural leaders, and stone the
real prophets.

XV. Between the false kings of men, who owe their thrones to accident,
and the really royal, who by chance of birth or station are a prey to
tyrants, there is everlasting war. Yet the spirit of the martyrs
survives, and long after their death they rule.

XVI. True kinghood is independent of royal birth or power or ensigns.
High moral and intellectual qualities make the natural kings