this would be the act of a wise man; but I cannot tell how to set
about it. If Love chastises and threatens in order to teach me
his lesson, ought I to disdain my master? He who despises his
master is a fool. Needs must I store up in my mind Love's lesson
for soon can great good come of it. But he buffets me greatly:
that sets me in alarm! True, neither blow nor wound is visible
and yet dost thou complain? Then art thou not wrong? Nay, indeed,
for he has wounded me so sore that he has winged his arrow even
to my heart; and not yet has he drawn it out again. How then has
he struck his dart into thy body when no wound appears without?
This shalt thou tell me; I would fain know it. In what member has
he struck thee? Through the eye. Through the eye? And yet he has
not put out thine eye? He has done me no hurt in the eye; but he
wounds me sorely at the heart. Now speak reason to me: how has
the dart passed through thine eye in such wise that the eye is
not wounded or bruised by it? If the dart enter through the midst
of the eye, why does my heart suffer pain in my body? Why does
not my eye also feel the pain, since it receives the first blow?
That can I well explain. The eye has no care to understand aught
nor can it do anything in the matter in any way; but the eye is
the mirror to the heart, and through this mirror passes the fire
by which the heart is kindled; yet so that it neither wounds nor
braises it. Then is not the heart placed in the body like the
lighted candle which is put inside the lantern? If you take the
candle out, never will any light issue thence; but as long as the
candle lasts the lantern is not dark; and the flame which shines
through neither harms nor injures it. Likewise is it with regard
to a window: never will it be so strong and so whole but that the
ray of the sun may pass through it without hurting it in any way;
and the glass will never be so clear that one will see any better