Condicions d'amor: De gran amor
The Measure of Great Love
Great love is defined by its endurance, power, knowledge, will, and the virtue that enables suffering.
No love that lasts only a little while is great. ii. A power that can't do anything through love can't be great. iii. The more Love is known, the more it multiplies and nourishes loving.1 iv. Love that isn't chosen cannot be great.2 v. Without the great virtue of love, no lover can endure great hardships for love.
The Marks of True Love
Great love is distinguished from false love by its truth, its pursuit of glory, its indifference to hardship, harmony, and resistance to contraries.
VI. In no false love is there great loving. VII. Without great love, no lover can win great glory. viii. A friend who has great love makes no distinction between the pleasures and the hardships he bears for his beloved.3 ix. Without harmony between friend and beloved, no love can be great. x. As much as the friend resists what is contrary to love, he has great love.
The Foundations of Lasting Love
Great love grows from a worthy beginning, mutual equality, a noble end, and a perfect proportion between love and loving.
xi. Every love that begins and sustains great loving is great. xii. No love is great unless it is equally balanced between the friend and the beloved.4 xiii. Every great love requires a great purpose for loving.5 xiv. No great love is opposed to greater loving. xv. No equality between great love and loving is small. 16. With less love, no love is great.
Read the original Catalan
Neguna amor que poc dura, es gran.
ij. Poder qui no pot damor fer nula res, no pot ésser gran.
ijj. Amor, aitant com pus gran es sabuda, aitant montiplica e nodrex g' amar.
iiij. Amor qui no es volguda no pot ésser gran. V. Sens gran vertut damor, negun amic pot grans trebayls sostenir per amor.
vj. En neguna falsa amor ha gran amar. vij. Sens gran amor, negú amic pot gran glòria conquerir.
viij. Amic qui ha gran amor, no fa differencia emfre los plaers e trebayls' que ha per son amat. viiij. Sens concordansa damic e damat, neguna amor pot ésser gran. X. Aytant com lamic contrasta als contraris damor, ha gran amor.
xj. Tota amor qui comensa e conserva gran amar, es gran.
xij. Neguna amor es gran si no està egualment enfre lamic e lamat. xiij. Tota gran amor requer gran fi d amar. xiiij. Neguna gran amor es contra major amar. XV. Neguna egualtat de gran amor e amar es poca.
xvj. Ab menor amar, neguna amor es gran.
Notes
- 1 ↩g' amar is read as lo amar / l'amar, 'loving' (the act of loving); sabuda is feminine, consistent with Llull's personified Amor.
- 2 ↩Catalan volguda (from voler) can mean willed, wanted, or desired; rendered as willed to keep Llull’s emphasis on active willing.
- 3 ↩emfre is Old Catalan entre ('between'); trebayls' is trebayls/treballs ('labors, hardships'), with a likely typesetting apostrophe.
- 4 ↩enfre is Old Catalan entre ('between'); lamic / lamat are l'amic / l'amat ('the friend' / 'the beloved'), Llull's paired terms for lover and beloved.
- 5 ↩fi is the teleological end or purpose (scholastic finis); amar is the act of loving, distinct from amor as love itself.
Arbre de filosofia d'amor (Tree of the Philosophy of Love) companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent