Pregueres d'amor: De duració e amor
The Prayer for Enduring Love
The Friend prays for power to love the Beloved's honors, and Love urges him not to cease loving so that love may endure between them.
The Friend prayed to the lastingness of his Beloved, asking that it would give him the power to love His acts of honor, His worth, and His honors. ii. The Friend prayed that his understanding and memory would keep him from imagining and sensing, which want his love to last in loving goods that last only a little while.1 iii. Friend, said Love: don't stop loving, so that I may endure between you and the Beloved.2
Choosing Lasting Goods
Love instructs the Friend to make virtue and truth endure in his thinking, to desire lasting pleasures over fleeting ones, and to love general goods rather than particular ones.
iv. Love told the Friend to make virtue endure in his thinking, so that within that thinking, she might make virtuous love endure.3 v. "Beloved," the Friend said, "sustain truth in my love, so that false love cannot endure within it." 6. Friend, said Love: don't make me desire the pleasure of imagining and feeling, since it lasts only a little; and make me desire the pleasures that last long, by understanding and remembering the glory of your Beloved. vii. Love said to the Friend that he should not make it last by loving the particular goods that last only a little, but by loving the general ones that last a long time.4
Love Anchored in Understanding
The Friend seeks accord between love and understanding of the Beloved's worth, while Love warns against lingering on vanities and advises beginning every love with discernment of its lastingness.
viii. "Love," said the Friend, "bring your loving into accord with understanding and with remembering the worth of my Beloved, so that it can last long in you." ix. "Friend," said Love, "when you turn your thoughts to vanities, don't let your understanding and remembering linger in that thought, for if you do, I won't be able to keep from loving them." 10. Love told the Friend that when he began to love anything, he should begin by remembering and understanding whether the thing he wants to love is lasting. xi. Friend, said Love: if you want to make your loving last, keep it in the midst of remembering and understanding your Beloved and His works.
Perseverance and Purity
The Friend prays for health, opportunity, greater thought, and equality of love and loving, and Love warns that allowing temptation to linger diminishes love for the Beloved.
xii. The Friend asked his Beloved to make health, disposition, and opportunity endure in him, so that he could keep loving the end of love.56 xiii. "Beloved," said the Friend, "make my loving endure in greater thought, so that I may remain in greater love." xiv. The Friend prayed that love and loving might be made equal in him, so that he could keep on serving his Beloved.7 xv.8 "Friend," said Love, "don't let temptation last in your thought, for the more you make it last there, the less loving you make me have toward your Beloved."9
Read the original Catalan
La duració de son amat, pregava lamic, que ab durar li donàs poder damar sos honramentz ses valors e honors.
ij. Pregà lamic son entendre e membrar qucs guardassen de ymagenar e sentir, qui volen que sa amor dur en amar los bens qui poc duren.
iij. Amic, dix lamor: no tugs damar, per so que yo enfre tu e lamat pusca durar.
iiij. A lamic dix amor, que feés durar vertut en son cogitar, per so que en lo cogitar ela pogués fer durar vertuós amar. V. Amat, dix lamic: fé durar veritat en ma amor, per so que en ela fals amar no pusca durar.
vj. Amic, dix amor: nom fasses desirar plaer de ymaginar e sentir, pus que poc dura; e fem desirar los plaers qui molt duren, per entendre e membrar la glòria de ton amat.
vij. Lamor dix al amic que no la feés durar en amar los bens especials qui poc duren, mas en amar los generals qui molt duren.
viij. Amor, dix lamic: concorda ton amar ab entendre e ab membrar les valors de mon amat, per so que molt pusca en tu durar. viiij. Amic, dix amor: con cogitaràs en vanitats, en aquela cogitació no lexs durar ton entendre e membrar, car si ho fas, jo nom poré abstenir de eles amar.
x. Dix amor a lamic que con comensaria neguna res a amar, 'que comensàs a membrar e entendre si la cosa que vol amar es durable.
xj. Amic, dix amor: si vols fer durar ton amar, fél estar en lo mig de membrar e entendre ton amat e ses obres.
xij. Pregava lamic son amat que feés en cl durar sanitat disposició e oportunitat, per ço que pogués durar en amar la fi damor.
xiij. Amat, dix lamic: fé durar mon amar en major cogitar, per so que en major amor pusca estar. xiiij. Pregà lamic amor e amar ques egualassen en él, per so que pogués durar en servir son amat. XY. Amic, dix amor: no lexs durar temptació en cogitació, car on mais lay fas durar, fas a mi aver menor amar en vers ton amat.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source reading qucs is treated as que·ls (“that they”), i.e. that understanding and memory would guard him; the contracted form is uncertain.
- 2 ↩Old Catalan «tugs» (in «no tugs damar») is read as a 2sg imperative/cessative sense ‘cease/stop’; neighboring sections on durar/amar support ‘don’t stop loving.’
- 3 ↩Catalan ela is feminine; the nearest antecedent is vertut (virtue), not Love herself. Rendered as 'she' referring to virtue.
- 4 ↩Catalan 'la' is feminine; the likeliest antecedent is 'duració' (duration) from the chapter theme 'De duració e amor', though the sense may also be love's own lasting. Rendered here as 'it' for the lasting of love. 'Bens especials' / 'bens generals' is Llull's particular vs. general goods distinction.
- 5 ↩Source reads "en cl"; translated as "en él" ("in him"), matching neighboring Llull usage in this chapter (e.g. "en él").
- 6 ↩"la fi d'amor" rendered as "the end of love" (final purpose/goal of love), not temporal ending.
- 7 ↩amor e amar: Llull distinguishes love (the power/virtue) from loving (the act); kept as "love and loving" rather than collapsing them.
- 8 ↩Source reads "XY."; in sequence after xiij/xiiij this is taken as xv (15), with Y likely a paleographic/transcription stand-in for V.
- 9 ↩no lexs: taken as no lexes/deixes ("don't let/leave"); lay = l'hi ("it there").
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