Condicions d'amor: De saviea e amor
The Wise Lover and the Wise Beloved
A wise lover must have a virtuous will, and a wise beloved rejects foolish friends.
No lover who wants to love without a virtuous will is wise. ii. No wise beloved desires to be desired or served by a foolish and vicious lover.1
Wisdom and the Knowledge of Glorious Love
Wisdom cannot coexist with false love, and without knowing glorious love one cannot truly love; wisdom must clarify the distinction in glory to inspire love.
iii. Wisdom and false love cannot be mixed. iv.2 Whoever doesn't want to know glorious love doesn't know how to love. v. If wisdom doesn't make clear the difference between the one who glorifies and the one who is glorified in glory, it doesn't move the lover to love great glory.3
The Concordance of Glory and Wisdom
In glory, the concordance between the glorifier and the glorified is as lovable as the concordance between the understander and the understood in wisdom.
VI. In the essence and nature of glory, the harmony between the one who glorifies and the one who is glorified is just as lovable as the harmony in wisdom between the one who understands and the one who is understood.4
The Wise Friend and the Beginning of Love
A wise friend opposes love's enemies, begins loving from love itself, stands in the middle of love, and considers love's end.
vii. Every wise lover is opposed to the enemies of love. viii. It is as fitting to begin loving from love as to understand from wisdom. ix. Loving stands in the middle of love as much as understanding stands in the middle of wisdom.5 x. A wise lover often considers the end of love.6
The Wise Lover's Humility and Discernment
A wise lover submits to greater love, equalizes love and loving, and would never trade greater love for lesser.
xi. Every wise lover submits to being a servant of greater love. 12. No one is a wise lover who doesn't know how to balance love and the act of loving.7 13. No wise lover would trade greater love for lesser love.
Read the original Catalan
Negú amic qui sens vertuosa volentat vol amar, es savi.
ij. Per fol e viciós amic, mgú savi amat desira ésser desirat ni servit.
iij. Saviea e falsa amor nos poden mesclar, iiij. Qui no vol saber gloriosa amor, no sab amar. V. Si saviea no declara differencia de gloriejant e gloriat en glòria, no mou lamic a gran glòria amar.
vj. Aytan amable es, en la essència e natura de glòria, concordansa de gloriós e gloriat, com, en saviea, de entenent e entès.
vij. Tot amic savi es contrari als enemics damor. viij. Aytant se cove comensar amar damor, com entendre de saviea. viiij. Aitant està amar en lo mig damor, com entendre en lo mig de saviea. X. Savi amador sovín cossira la fi damor.
xj. Tot savi amador se sotsmet a ésser servidor de major amor.
xij. No es savi amador qui no sab egualar amor e amar. xiij. Negú savi amador vendria major amor per menor.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source reading `mgú` treated as `negú` ('no/nobody'), matching the chapter's prior sentence (`Negú amic...`) and yielding the only coherent sense.
- 2 ↩Reading medieval Catalan nos as no·s (cannot / reflexive-passive), not as the object pronoun "us": wisdom and false love cannot mix with each other. The trailing iiij. looks like the next article numeral attached to this sentence in the source segmentation.
- 3 ↩gloriejant / gloriat are Llull's correlatives in glory (glorifier and glorified), parallel to amic/amat and entenent/entès. lamic = l'amic, the lover. a gran glòria amar taken as "to love great glory"; it could also be heard as loving unto or with great glory.
- 4 ↩Catalan gloriós e gloriat parallels the chapter’s gloriejant e gloriat pair and the wisdom pair entenent e entès (agent/patient correlatives). Rendered as ‘the one who glorifies / the one who is glorified’ to keep that dialectic, not as a vague ‘glorious and glorified.’
- 5 ↩Catalan «lo mig» may mean either the midst/middle stage or a technical mean/medium; rendered as middle to preserve the begin–middle–end sequence with s4 and s8.
- 6 ↩Catalan «fi» here is the teleological end/purpose of love, not merely its termination.
- 7 ↩Catalan amor e amar keeps Llull’s distinction between love as quality/power (amor) and the act of loving (amar); egualar means bringing them into proportion, not merely likening them in a loose sense.
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