Condicions d'amor: De differencia e d'amor
Difference as the Foundation of Concord
True love requires difference, yet that difference is not born of opposition but of distinct persons.
Without difference, there can be no concordance in any love. ii. The difference between the lover and the beloved doesn't come from contraries.1
The Beginnings of Love and the Necessity of Difference
Love begins through feeling, imagining, and loving, and without the difference of lover and beloved, love cannot exist.
iii.2 Feeling, imagining, and loving are different starting points of loves, through which the lover goes to see his beloved. iv. If in love there were no difference between lover and beloved, love could not exist between the lover and the beloved.
The End of Loving and the Greatest Difference
The lover's fulfillment lies in diverse acts of love's roots, and the greatest difference is between willing and loving.
v. The end and fulfillment of the lover's loving consists in the different acts of the roots of love, by which that loving is adorned and clothed. vi. No difference in love is greater than that of willing and loving.3
Difference Among Equals and Discernment of Love's Goods and Evils
Equal loves require difference, and a lover who fails to distinguish between love's goods and evils cannot have a lesser love.
vii. Without difference among equal lovers, there would be no equal loves. viii. There can't be a lesser love in a lover who doesn't distinguish between the goods and evils of love.4
Read the original Catalan
Senes differencia, en neguna amor pot ésser concordansa. ij. Diferencia damic e damat no viu de contraris.
jij. Sentir e ymagenar e amar son differents comensaments damors, ab los quals lamic va veer son amat.
iiij. Si en amor no avia differencia damic e damat, no poria estar amor enfre lamic e lamat. V. Fi e compliment està lamar del amic dels differents actus de les rails damor, de les quals està lamar ornaf e vestit.
vj. Neguna differencia damor es major que aqucla qui es de voler e d amar.
vij. Sens differencia de eguals amadors, no foren eguals amors.
viij. No pot ésser menor amor en amic qui no fa differencia enfre los bens els mal damor.
Notes
- 1 ↩Catalan 'viu de' rendered as 'live from'; in Llullian usage it can also mean 'consist of / subsist by.' 'Contraris' kept as the technical 'contraries' rather than casual 'opposites.'
- 2 ↩Source reading jij. is treated as the section numeral iij. (iii), matching the neighboring ij. / iiij. enumeration; medieval Catalan often writes j for i.
- 3 ↩Source 'aqucla' read as 'aquella' (that one); likely a typographic/witness corruption.
- 4 ↩Medieval Catalan 'els mal' is read as 'e·ls mal(s)' ('and the evils'); 'fa differencia enfre' is rendered as 'makes no distinction between' to keep the chapter's 'differencia' force in natural modern English.
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A daily portion of stillness
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