Schizoposting #6: On ] the Passing of the Moment.
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:19 amPART ONE:
This is a single paragraph and footnote from out of one of my books. It is on the subject the title of this thread indicates. I close my eyes, recite the Ayers of the Enochian scheme; I practice the diagrammatic circuits of the sacred JEU... I leave this world and look into myself. And when a single sentence and a single footnote to it prompts the following... I... try to talk to people, but. There's nothing there. So I get wasted and talk to myself. Foreign language quotes in italics, authors and books cited without italics... I said so before... explaining my legend, notation... Time for more drugs.... this took a long time to format for this web... forum... thing. Loosing my buzz, time to re-up. I think I have a urinary tract infection, my dick's sore. Feels weird when I piss. It's getting better though so I think I'm cool. My teeth are rotting, but none hurt, so at least I don't need to worry about getting sick... My body is going. I've sent the pics, I used to have literal ten-pack abs. But I think I''m ... I think dying now. Either the alcohol or the alcohol+drugs combo, I just am not... Processing food. Anyway. The extent and depth of my knowledge... scares even me. My brain itself is haunted.. by these ghosts. They never stop. Talking. Talking. Talking. Talking. Stop. I am entering the final stage. My own thought, plus the greatest compendium of knowledge ever assembled on this earth. That is what I'm leaving behind. No room for friends, brothers, lovers, for... anything. I am done. This is it. And this post is literally a single atom of the mental universe I have assembled. I'm ready to die for it. Until then, here is a sinlgle thread; one hair, one atom, one ... sentence... one,. I ask the Gods to give me just another 5-10 years so I can get all my text in order, it's... so much. That's all I ask. Give me that and I will leave this place without complaint... Just a little more time...
Man must avoid attaching his soul to passing things, yet only by an opening up of the Stoical
anima to the passing of the moment can man distinguish the one thing from another- the resilient
from the fleeting, the virtuous from the vain, bearing that 'earthly fragment' of Goethe's angels in
chaos eadem cernentibus omnibus ipsa, quos privant oculis tempus in omne suis; or, as Pindar
said to similar effect, so do we read the shape of our life by shadows, or even the shadow of a
dream, for desire is the memory of desire's every defeat, and love is the memory of all that love
has lost and failed to gain, in utilius cunctis animum tenuisse refertum vanitas fugiens. [Petrus
Cordinus, Collatio Saporum, ex Sophoclaeum: Utilius cunctis animum tenuisse refertum: cum
visio sint haec & vanitas fugiens; atque chaos eadem cernentibus omnibus ipsa, quos privant
oculis tempus in omne suis.] Besides, it is more often pathos that reproves us, not reason; desire
that thwarts desire, not ethos,- non virtus, fregit voluptas; nec potuit virtus vincere, sed vitium.
[Romula non virtus, fregit Campana voluptas, nec potuit virtus vincere, sed vitium. Stephanus
Paschasius Iurisconsulti, in Iconum Poemata Liber, No. 42; ad Huraltum Chiuernium
Cancellarium.] Having earlier noted the ends of human nature, as necessarily beyond the ends of
the ancient Cynical estimation of the "fragilius terra fabricatio", or the infirmity of Natural
generation, it were still a faith borne in frustraque sibi arrodat ungues, qui non sit a naturam ad
Poesin; [Nature thwarts the tongue of the poet who would defy her. Phillipus Brietius
Abbavillaeus, in: Poetis Syntagma; refer to the preface to the fragmentary Roman poets.
Quanquam etiam divinus ille furor a Deo tantum concedatur nonnullis; frustraque sibi arrodat
ungues, qui non sit a naturam factum ad Poesin; nihilominus innata vis illa imitatione multum
perficitur, & magnum hactenus momentum attulit carmina tentantibus, legisse carmina.] it were
only a glimmering of the 'World-Soul' and that fatal impulse, "which needs must work out its
own salvation within the heart of the individual",- athanaton in omnis anima est immortalis
adsequatur perfecta Timaeum,- [Res una quaeque, sive per naturam, sive per rationem agat,
bonum & finem intendit; &, si bonum & finem adsequatur, perfecta; sin vero eo excidat, misera
est, & infelix. Cum itaque homo anima sit praeditus rationali, quae immateria, indissolubilis, &
immortalis est; huic quoque; tale bonum conveniet, quod mensuram & durationem corporis
excedat, & cum ipsa immortali anima, post discessum a corpore, perennet. Christfidi
Saggitarius, in: Otium Jenenses Commentationum Philologicarum & Philosophicarum; Dis.
Secunda; Gnostos, ΤΟ ΓΝΩΕΤΟΝ ΤΟ ΤΗΕΟΝ; Notitia Dei, Anteloquium.] nor mourned with
wisdom's 'prudent terrors' di questa morte delle idee piu sublimi, [The 'small death' of sublime
ideas. Del pensier dello schiavo; io frenar deggio l impeto dell etade, ed insegnargli i prudenti
terrori, e dirgli: e chiusa ogni splendida via; languidi, oscuri passeranno i tuoi giorni, e questa
morte delle idee piu sublimi, ordin si chiama. Time breedeth slaves of all, checks the gamble of
ambition and teacheth better still, the prudent terrors of age; every splendid way is closed;
languid, the tired artist will number his days in darkness, and only he is left to mourn the death of
man's sublimest thoughts. Foscarinus, in: Tragedia Scelte ed Altre Rime di Giovambatista
Niccolini.] a knowledge gambled ex Pieriis auctor amoris vatibus iuventates [It were an ill
omen, that a youth should excel in writing poetry, most of all in the service of Amore; let him
take heed. <!!> Heu periit latia quod erat periit decus omne iuventate simul humani delitiae
generis. Denique Pieriis si quis fuit auctor amoris vatibus, huic puero cederet. Dedicatio
Alexandri Cinnuttius Senensis, Poetarum Foeliciter Incipiunt. Corollary to this, one might add
that the heart is tested ex amor major in unicum,- by possession, not temptation. Insofar as the
youth does not possess even himself, it were hardly worthy of dispute, as to the measure of his
heart in possession of another. Out of Iudicellus Rouyant, Odes: amor major in unicum qui cum
dona suo plurima divites omnes ferre duci cerneret, et nihil praeter pauperiem posset ei suam
offerre, in manibus detulit optimam illi fontis aquam castalii suis.] upon the immortal soul with
the emphemeron and blade of grass, in turpitudinem malam esse docuit,- [Man does not naturally
fear death, but that he is taught to. † Micraelius, in: Ethnophronius Tribus Dialogorum, Liber
Primus; de Animae Humanae Immortalitate. (To the same point, note also: "Piae & Sanae
mentes haec ingenia beneficia Dei, propter maximas utilitates in vita humano generi concessa,
agnoscunt & magnificiunt, ac auribus ipsis atque; animus abhorrent ab illis insulsis & Epicureis
vulgi clamoribus." Epistola Ioachimi Hellerius Leucopetraeus in Albohali.) As to the 'neglectful
death' of greater things: hic si paulo longius vitam extenderit, quoque, extendet? Properat cursu
vita citato, volucrique; die rota praecipus vertitur anni. Et quemadmodum animalculum
quoddam, ephemeron vel hemerobion dictu, juxta bosporum nasci vidistis, cujus vita uni dici
termino includitur, cum mane nascatur & sit infans, meridie vigeat & juventutem teneat, vesperi
senescat vivendique; ita quoque; si cuncta gauda nostra, vel voluptates, & quaecumque; ex haec
universitate mundi vel sollicitatum adspectu, vel bladiuntur usu diligeter excutias, tota civita
hominis un est dies. Ibid.] or better, upon the strength of a single thread, though it were a thread
that measured all the world in uno peccato longam telam texere, ex fracti magnitudine mali,
prorsus deficiunt a virtute, [Ita hostis Dei & generis humani, novit ex uno peccato longam telam
texere. It were a web that covers all the world, though it were threaded by a single sin. Fracti
magnitudine mali, prorsus deficiunt a virtute. Sorrow is a deficiency of virtue, portioned to our
dispensation from the fates: in res longe fortuna regressus est. (Res longe fortuna regressa est.
In: Mylonymus Evirenaeus Coloniensis; Carmen Heroicum Permissu Divino sit Licitum.) Of
Youth: Iuuentus adhuc ignara vitae, imaginatur homines nasci ad delitias, & fruendas
voluptates, & has ociosis animis expetit et querit, sed senes, qui degustarunt communes miserias,
longa aliter iudicant, ac intelligunt, hanc vitam universam, plenam esse aerumnarum. For these
three paraphrases, refer to Ioannis Pollicarius, in: de Fugacitate, Miseriae, et Inconstantia Vitae,
et Omnium Rerum Humanarum Zachariae Vicentini Liliae; et Contra Sylva Quaedam
Consolationum Philosophicarum.] or no less faithfully in any case, than is the total existence of
our terrestrial inhabitation measured by its first moment, for it were a cosmos that shall live for
no greater a span of time than was the Apple of Knowledge chewed in the mouths of those first
of our race, who declined higher stewardship over the Garden paradisaical. [As to this
remarkable figuration concerning the Garden, note Lancelot Andrewes, in: Apospasmatia Sacra,
P. 196. "To conclude, we see into what misery man is fallen for a little vain pleasure of sin,
which lasted but the space while the apple was chewed in their (Adam and Eve) mouths ..."]
† Thus, that 'if Death measureth the mind',- mortis apud perpenderit mens, in genus
deprehenderit hemerobion,- 1 [Adamae Melchioriis Apographum Monumentorum ex Officina
Cambierius Item Oratio in Funere de Marsilli Inguenuae.] or having been so taught, in cupienti
mori copia mortis non sit, [Boessius Dionysius Saluagnius Delphinatis, Commentarius Ovidii,
interpretes Sophoclaeum.] and brought up with this corrupta timore, (the 'Theophilii noxa
imaginatricis') one might wish to confer blame,- either to the Thebanus Linae (Linus of the
poets) or the Lina Orphaeum, (Linus of the philosophers.) [Valeri. Probus Berytius, in
Commentaria Virgili Eclogae. Linus autem thebanus poeta fuit Apollinis sum eos, quos nunc
poeta sequitur filius. Nu satis excesserat dicedo linus poeta Orpheaque theologum.] though it
were of no real account to make demarcation thereof, or sequester the ends of human nature by
the ends of art,- quad omnino homines scientia in omnes artium vincis; [Petrus Chabbotius
Gualterii Pictonis Sanlupensis, in: Praelectiones Horatii Venusini Vatis Poemata Explicantur.
Hippia Socratices dicitur: omnes omnino homines scientia plurimarum artium vincis. The study
of human nature demands the study, equally, of all arts. The 'noxa imaginatricis' is also
discussed here,- an object of thought lacking the 'material image' through which memory
stabilizes the 'energeia' of the 'atomic' (a la. Lucretius) passions and directs them toward some
end,- as having, in the Epicurean theory, subverted the role of the ratio in the delineation of
natural goods from ills.] nor were it of greater moment, be that blame imputed to the common
'misera ambitione laborat' * of mortality, endured in morbus dat generosa morbum with the
philosophers,- or perfected in acheronice gravi ex studiam virtutis by the theologues,- [Georgius
Dottanius Sartoris Menigensiis, in: Carmen Lysitelilogon de Poetices Commoditatibus Contra
Sacrilogos Divini Muneris Osores. Recall the soliloquies of Lysiteles, from out of Plautus,
concerning the pitfalls of Love, finally reproving us, not to simply avoid it, but to 'fear' it, in the
enigmatical apothegm offered out of Goethe's Faust, which we might extend to the charm of
poetry.] a Labor knowing the 'works and days' which are our charge, from out of Genesis, which
even still cannot crush the heart of sin like the grasshopper, which pulls itself along under the
weight of Vanity,- inane labore putas curam vitiisque amissum nescis Paradisum,- [Umbritius
Cantianus, in: Satira Juvenalis ad Pamphilum Urbanum. Species ita flectere inanes corda virum
longe qui non indulta tuentur. Nempe labore putas, curam, vitiisque vacare ruricolas. Amissum
nescis paradisum, et dira tropae inferni regis?] or still, the morbo affectum libidinem read out of
the furious voluptancies of Nature,- a 'dulcis venenum' in vitium irreparabile mutat enjoyed here
below the occluded firmament, et oculi aeterno confudere Vultus,- [Guidonis Vanninius
Lucensis, Carminum; Precatio ad Deum: ab dulce venenum dulcis amarices vitium, et nimium
reparabile mutat in damnum mortis; Lunae valeat confundere vultus, aeternosque oculos coeli
foedare.] an 'earthly fragment' borne with the angels ex theia anaphora praxteon, whose depth
were measured only by the height of our Fall, qua peccatorum differentia in progressu ad ingens
praecipitum,- [Urbanus Siberus, in: Enchiridion Sextus Pythagoraeus Christi ut Codicem
Rhenanius. P. 281-282. Quum itaque non vult, aliquod peccatum alio levius dici, hoc tantum
cupit, e peccatorum differentia proclivitatem peccandi introducendam non esse, siquidem ex
tenui progressu ad ingens praecipitium abiri soleat. Note Thom. Gattacerus, ad Marcum
Antoninum; lib. III: 'theia anaphora praxteon'. παν και το μικροτατον συν τε επι θεια αναφορα
πραχτεον.] a sorrow exalted with the Prometheia of Knowledge ('luctus miseros in Daedaliis
ignipotens devinxit crura Prometheia'; Daedalus ignipotens devinxit crura Promethei
compedibus quondam iussu Iovis cruentis. In: Antonius Thylesius Consentinus, Carmina et
Epistolae ex codice Morellianii.) and the baneful Apple in serpentibus perpetuo morsum, after
the Poets.** [Tanaquillus Fabrius de Caen, in: Futilitate Poetices. Paraphr: Poetices morbo
affectum libidinem in voluptatibus corporis immersos, (recall the Ovidian 'mortis imago' alluded
to earlier) illum a serpentibus perpetuo morsum. P. 31-32. Note the similar language (to both of
our previous citations) employed by Varusaeus in his Annalium Complectitur Historiam Boicum,
concerning likewise, the 'separation' of the name, 'ex virtutis nomen anima aedificat': "Ejus
ambitionem & habendi libidinem non nihil induxere aliqua templorum aedificia, animo tam
immerso foedis corporis voluptatibus, ut non modo honestatis formam, sed etiam virtutis nomen
horreret.", ie. ambition alone raises temples as much as the name of virtue raises the heart of the
virtuous.] Recall that, when the Serpent managed to convince Eve to taste of Knowledge, he did
not simply promise that she would not die, but that she would "not die the death of things",- the
'morte moriermini' of Origen, (translated literally, the phrase simply means "dying death") or,
out of Nazianus' mystical vocabulary, the death of the 'autothanatos',- this fact generally
signifying a symbolic gap intrinsic to the Word, through which another kind of death might be
precipitated upon the human race, as upon all of Nature,- the 'terrestrial paradise' of which man
was once spiritually injoined through the Adamic tongue,- 'in poetas antiquissimum sapientia
genus philosophatos',- [Poetas, antiquissimum sapientum genus, primos omnium philosophatos
esse. The first philosophers, were said to have been poets; poetry as the 'primordial' wisdom in
primos omnium philosophatum. Iohann Gott. Heineccius, in: Elementa Philosophiae Rationalis et
Moralis, Accessere Historia; de Philosophia Graecanica.] a Nature whose 'various language'
[Bryant: "To him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks
a various language ..." A lost immediacy once enjoyed as a 'rhapsody of images', in Hamann's
phrase, through which Adam had named the animals.] were torn now from him by the 'asylum
ironia' of a more 'human language',- a vicious circle extended ad aeternam animae aur
felicitatem, aut miseriam pertinerent confabulatum. [Neque omnes, neque omnibus in rebus decet
ironia. In verba sunt, in nuga sunt ineptia. Nicolai Serrarius, in: Logi-Logia; Opusculorum
Theologicorum.]
1. Quae mortis genera si Christiana mens, ut debet, apud se perpenderit: an non hemerobion nos esse genus deprehendet? an non Homericum, aut
potius ex divinarum literarum myrothecio recordabitur & repetet illud: homo vanitati similis dies ejus, quasi umbra praeteriens? nebulae instar
dies nostri evanescant; pleraque enim epigraphae non nomen solum defuncti & diem e mortualem; sed vita etiam curriculum circum scripte & res
praeclare domi forisque patratas per vulgant.
* 'vel circa finem laborum'; in miseriam nostram cumulare, satis alias coecam, labori vere ulterius non obfuscet per abusum bonorum
temporalium. Engestromii Gradualis de Praestantissima Vita Theoretica atque Practica. P. 32.
** The two works cited here, (the Futilitate Poetices and the Carmina Contra Sacrilogos Λυσιτελιλογιον) seemingly framing opposing sides of
the one discussion, defend poetry against philosophy and religion, on the one hand, while the other defends philosophy and religion against the
'futilities' or "asylum ironia" of the poets. The first of the two, as quoted here, will be rendered in paraphrase: Nil genus antiquum terre titanta
pubes continuo magni fulmine vieta Iovis? Monitis ceca divinis pectora format interpres vite rectios omnis abest sacra anime illuviem scelerate
monstrat; et atram peste diluere qua ratione queas pectus si tumidum misera ambitione laborat instriuit exemplis qua brevis omnis honor, quam sit
bono; res solicito corrupta timore sed curis humili libera vita loco ignis avaritie, si torret pectora dire quo pellas morbus dat generosa morbum,
spicula capti oculis qui blanda cupidinis intus sita geris medico experiere manus absterret pene vicio formidine grandi manes quam miseri bant
acheronice gravi ex studiam virtutis premia iusta.
<!> INCIPIT OSSIAE: a note on my use of "Dante's philosopher-king". Omnia quae soluit, nisi mors quoque soluit amorem,- [Albertus
Vespasianus, in Lachrymae Poetica Catellae; Aldina Epistola ad Dominum Suum. Death, that opens all doors, and readeth the thesaurus of
Nature, yet closes one. Omnia quae soluit, nisi mors quoque soluit amorem; non opus est signis, si tuus extat amor.] or, as the knowing of Heaven
were begun in the un-knowing of the faithful here below, 'inchoat cognitionem cognitio fides, fidem continuas contiuam in cognitio', [Hadrianus
Castellesius, in: de Vera Philosophia. Note, 'iuxta mensuram uniuscuiusque peccati intelligentiae caecitas', in Gregorius Magnus' Moralia.] so the
conclusion of earthly law were begun in the tacit mensura of earthly life,- in hominum vita et moribus tota est philosophia, 1 [Charondaeus, in
Peithanon; (Πειθανων) Praefatio Prudentissimumque Praesidem Iacobum Lignerium: "veram philosophiam dixerit quae in hominum vita et
moribus tota est"; "cette noble science des choses divines et humaines". (Ut Hermogenianae:) His enim tota jurisprudentiae natura exprimitur: ne
quid qua de jurisprudentiae dici potest, quod haec duo capita referri non possit.] or more properly, our reckoning with a 'doubled-double', (like
the infernal bivium of Virgil's underworld, upon which departing souls enjoy their valedictions) ex duplex casu homine coetu philosophi genus
extitum,- 2 [Paulus Aringhius Romanus Nerianis, in: Monumenta Infelicitatis, sive Mortes Peccatorum Pessimae.] the 'duo ultimos hominis', in
the Dantean phrase; (α) an earthly fragment borne in coelitus delapsa Dianae aiopetous,- [ie. the "double-birth" of the soul, whose lower vegetal
creation emerges through natural processes,- the products of Diana's corporeal consorts,- and whose rational faculty exists as a separate destiny,
originating in God, or the solar genius of Amphitrite. The phrase is drawn from Eustachius Rudius Bellunensis, the early Galenic
psychologist-philosopher, in: de Humani Affectibus Liber. Note also, Cornelius Meierius, in: Theologica Lucae Axiopistia; P. 137.] or, to cite the
celestial refrain of Goethe's chorus-mysticus, even with the sorrow of the angels, that could find no hopeful commensuration of our lower
inhabitancies with "the mind's invincible force"; [As to similar conceptualizations of the Hesiodic-Prodican-Pythagorean 'upsilon', as interpreted
by the likes of a Petrarch or Virgil in their poetic figurations of the ambiguous twisting of life's paths, or in the gates of Ivory and Horn in the
world below, note G. H. Tucker, in "Homo Viator; Itineraries of Exile", "Of the Pilgrimage of Life; Of the Tabula Cebetis." Such figurations
demand a poetry of regret, and in fact they have one in Joachim Du Bellay, whose elegiac collection, "The Regrets", express more generally, the
traistre espoir of the poet, in errabunda vestigia forte cupido fugiens, (Censorinus ad Caerellium Natali; Pseudo-Lucii Carmina Amore in
Heroicum, Interprete Politianii: errabunda meus vestigia forte cupido qua fugiens tulerit) or the susceptibility of neglected genius to the vagaries
of imagination which so often plagued the dramatis personae of the Plautine cycle,- a 'genium suum defrauder' (the tendency of genius to deceive
itself) confounded by the mysteries of Heaven in stulti coelestis praeconia verbi spargimus mysteri iustum, to recall the tragic folly of Ioannes
Pollastrinus Aretinus, in the Sermonem ad Pomphilianus.] an 'angelic sorrow' from the perspective of the contemplative mode, though more aptly
characterized by the 'treacherous hopes and dreams' of worldly life,- a treachery intimated withal elegance by the specter of Rome, (to which de
Bellay address his verse) the spirit of whose fervented curia, (to be later resurrected by the Italian and Renaissance courts) socially energized to
the point that "success and failure answer to no rules",- save perhaps the direction of the wind,- (in keeping with a certain rather ludical aphorism
3 preserved amidst the fragmentary Stoa) "defies the ambitions of paroemiography." [MacPhail, in "Dancing Around the Well: the Circulation of
Commonplaces in Renaissance Humanism."] Let us recall here the myth of the Bodhisattva. Having attained the nibbanic vision, he refused
re-absorption into the Godhead, that he be instead re-precipitated into the dregs of matter, crushed once more and a thousand times more beneath
the Wheel of Time, echoing the 'divine infidelity' of the Godhead itself, as I have often preferred to name it- the Creator's having turned his back
upon the Creation. He does this so that, after being thrown back into the cycle of birth and death and rebirth, he might continue to exist alongside
the rest of the species and serve as a guide for others,- returning from the underworld like the soul of Aeneas, having alchemically purified the
'subsolary bivium' and, over the flowering branches of the aureaus ramus and mystical ilanoth,- reft from his heart like the Lapis of the
philosophers,- or even wielding the Mercurial aureus virgo,- the golden wand of Hermes,- prepared therewith, to lead the dead through the
Hadean undersoul in the attainment of the Paradise he refused, and will refuse again. This duplicity, of having attained the highest vision and
denied it to one's self; this deliberate act of sin, a profane 'anti-wisdom' embodied by the creator-artist or Munikava; to fall purposefully, as the
Demiurge or Gnostic angel himself did, back into matter, and to endure with all deliberation, the "captivity" to the passions, or the long
'flesh-experiment' which the Zosimian gnostics took their lives on earth to be: this 'sacred sin' or 'profane gnosis' is what Dante calls the duo
ultimos hominis, that is, an aporia or interim between the conclusion of the earthly and celestial demands upon human nature in 'deferunt
judicium'. ["a deference of justice"; Caspar Cellarius Thuringus, in: de Sortitione. "... deferunt judicium, ut longius progredi nequit humana
sagacitas.”] We find this "duo ultimo hominis" continually defended by Dante, from his theological, to his political, to his poetic texts, as an
"aporetic ground" through which an indeterminate interim between the consummation of earthly and divine authority is described through the
memory of the 'terrestrial paradise', per paradisum terrestrem figuratur, [J. Aleksander, The Aporetic Ground of Revelation's Authority in the
Divine Comedy and Dante's Demarcation and Defense of Philosophical Authority.] "stressing the nature and function of each alike as a moment
of reconfigured consciousness preliminary to the soul’s entry into the immediate presence of God, and in that of Inferno xxix by way of precisely
the opposite, of the soul’s captivity ..." [Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy; Vol. 3; John Took, in: Truth, Untruth, and the Moment of
Indwelling.] such that "the horizontality of human experience, (what Plotinus calls the 'discursivity' of the rationis significans) its unfolding
sequentially or in terms of the before and after of its key components, (a la. 'predicative logic') is resolved in terms of its verticality, ('connexio est
connexorum' ab aeterno in Dei essentia creatrix; note the Spanish philosopher Zumelius, out of Adrianus Herebortius Eleutherii, in the
Meletemata Philosophica. Recall also, the Plotinian 'syntheme' or Image, by which the discursive ratio perceives the 'totum simul' of the pure
intellectus, or, citing Aspasius Caramuelius in his Ioco-Seriorum Naturae et Artis, the veluti hieroglyphica in primordiis Mundi connexae,- a
plenitude of meaning inexpressible by any number of associative, inter-connected semiotic chains or 'signs', accordingly perceived within an
instant of Time like the material synthesis of Vico's 'poetic logic',- much as the God-Mind, according to Gombrich, in his analysis of the role of
the ecstatic Image in the metaphysics of art, apprehends its object as a simultaneous perichoreia of its own divine attributes, ex sapientiam
intellectu potentiali in materia ex potius semina. See, Nicolai Iacobi Loensiis Epiphillidum: Philosophicis in mentem procreatricem esse
principiorum ingenuit enim natura.) of the height and depth of that experience.", [Ibid.] as cast beyond the thin borders of earthly power, that
would temper the humor of the Kings,- Caesareas leges, Caesareasque minas,- [Nemo magistratus audit regesque; Caesareas leges,
Casareasque minas. Johann. Atrocianus, in: Poemata, Rustico Elegia. The monarch without audience issues threats, not laws.] or, if not wholly
resolved, than submit to the heroic cycles of spiritual ekstasis and moral humiliation, heroic love and moral cupidity- the depth and ascent
whereby, in the Brunonian account, we may in the least boast the glory of a 'sapiens romanus', enduring the Stoa its worldly vicissitudes ex
interim dum vivimus in mundo inter larvatos medii vitium specie virtutus & umbra; [Albertus Schumacherus Theologii-Ansgarianiis, in: Oratio de
Simplicitate. "Sapiens Romanus; philosophia, quae ad deum spectat altior est animosior, multum permisit sibi, non suit oculis contenta. Majus
quiddam suspicata est, ac pulchrius, quod extra conspectum natura posuisset. Sin mortuis, nihil sentiatur, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum
mortui philosophi irrideant." (Cirellius Germanis, Ethica Aristotelica eiusdem Ethica Christiana. Glorioso est commendatio philosophiae apud
Romanum sapientem: Philosophia quae ad Deum spectat altior est & animosior multum permisit sibi, non fuit oculis contenta. Majust esse
quiddam suspicata est, ac pulchrius quod extra conspectum natura possuit. Sin mortuis, nihil sentiatur, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum
mortui philosophi irrideant.) Cornelius Marci de Fraconia, Oratio de Bacchanalibus Vitiorum sub Speciosa Virtutum Larva Ultus Nequitiam
Velantium: Fallit enim vitium specie virtutus & umbra; impia sub dulci melle venena latent. Interim dum vivimus mundo inter larvatos medii,
(dum furit Lyaeus, dum regnat rosa, dum madent capilli) ea, quae emendare non possumus, feramus, locumque apud nos relinquamus concinno
Aristippi effato. (Aristippus: He is truly modest, who can enjoy excess without corruption: qui vere pudicus est, nec inter bacchanalia
corrumpitur. Or, to the same point, from out of Boissartus Vesuntinus, in the Theatrum: Suave Dei munus vinum est; hominumque saluti
conducit; praesit dummodo sobrietas.)] as likewise, the fortuna of Salutatius,- an 'imagina per virtu propria' for whose estimation we deserve no
praise for that Good which makes us Good, but for the Goods we've wrought, in sofferi colpe meritarono, for the compensation of our Evils. [For
the sins of the father only bear inheritance, never his virtues: "A ragion posseder ciascun s' imagina cio, che per virtu propria i padri ot tennero;
ma sofferir a torto ogn'un querela si cio, che con le lor colpe meritarono." See Bongiia Gratarolus, in Polissena; ex Cassandra Interlocutore
Tragoedia-Poemata. Note: one must observe the Roman conceptualization of Fate, as emerging "vertically" from the subject, that is, from some
internal force,- a daemonic impulsion toward self-destruction and habit expressing Dante's 'duo ultimis', in strict contrast to the Greek idea of
Fortune, as depicted on the one hand by Aeschylus, (recalling the poetic trope) who, while busy writing, oblivious to the eagle flying over head,
is suddenly killed when it drops a turtle on him,- a Fortune that, by imposing an external force upon the individual, or 'fortuna fortunans', (a
'Fortuna fortunans', just as the 'natura naturans' indicates the active principality of Nature. Note the following, Joannes Thuilius
Mariaemontanum Tirolensem de Brisgoiae, in the great commentaries, ie. Alciati Commentariis Amplissimis, et Claudius Minoeus et Franciscus
Sanctius Brocensis Notis. Ex Sophoclaeum: Only those with excess of virtue, possess it; only those who continually strive for virtue, do not lose
it; * "Virtutis (arete) sola constants perpetuaque; possessio." Or, with this 'virtutis sola constans' negatively stated, out of Panemus Cisseus
Cordarus Alexandrinus, in Lucii Sectanius ad Gaium Salmorium Sermones: "A wisdom found, not in dust, but in sweat, for where Ambitio fails,
Desire only reigns"; sapientum ex ordine nullum invenies hodie, inquit, in hoc qui pulvere multum no sudet; perdidit ambitio, & regnandi dira
cupido. Note also, from the Encomium Sapientiae ex Parallelis Ethices Naturalis et Divinae: ex Socrates: "O virtus ardua laboriosaque generi
humano, pulcherrima vitae inventio! Tuam o virgo, ob venustatem etiam mori in Graecia optabilis habetur mors, ac labores vehementes et
indefessos perpeti. Talem pectori inseris fructum immortalem, auro potiorem. ... Ethices naturalis origo est natura, nimirum Deus, quatenus ipse
est uti fortuna fortunans, ita et natura naturans, puta auctor et conditor naturae.") can for that reason simply be sublated by an internal
recognition of the primacy of Knowledge, which gives us the secondary depiction of Greek Fate, by way of a corollary and opposing trope,-
namely the heroic acceptance of the judgement of the court, which Socrates evinced toward his own Fate: "Vera esset Virtus praestantior,
Iustitiane, an Fortitudo?" "Nec morti nec vinculis Sapientem cedere." Note Schonhovius Godanius, in: Partim Moralita, Partim etiam Civilia. The
'daemon' of Greece had not yet been transposed from its horizonal-discursive media, ie. the 'palintrope', until the Platonic theory of the metaxy 4
finally joined Eros with it as a vertical element, (which was of course realized, not in the culture of Greece, that is, the culture of Athens, but in
that of the Rome) revealing a Horatian 'vita labore dedit mortalibus' behind the curtain of Fortune, and therefor a certain 'moral uncertainty' as
well, [For an expression of this ambiguity, we have: Schumbergi Tobiae Tironensis Philosophiae Practicae Renovata Pharus Divina et
Serperastra; Aphorisimi. Quot sunt species virtutis moralis, tot sunt species bestialitatis. There are as many forms of virtue as there are of vice.]
for which the earlier, more 'Athenian' mode of philosophy, conducted in studium pallio et humi cubaret, [Iulius Capitolinus, in: Antonius
Philosophus.] or a purely intellective sublation, in philosophiciis menti componerem virtutes laborem ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque
labores, [Cassius Parmensiis Poetae inter Epicos Veteres Orpheus et Chrytaeii-Commentariolum; Facienda No. II, P. 25. "Virtu componere
mentem ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque labores." The sufficient telling of virtuous works, which we observe in the greatest of our poets and
philosophers, is an ample stimulus, and justly inclinates man toward heroic labor.**] was no sufficient guide in the accomplishment of Virtue,
that is, for the navigation of a Virgilian bivium with which the subject must inwardly contend- in flagret impium philosophicis cor duros virtutis
amore.*** ('The true philosophy tests our love of Virtue.' In keeping with the meditation on the Pythagorean verses concerning the ambiguities of
the turns of fate out of which life is constituted, taken out of Henricus Diestius, in: de Ratione Studii Theologici. P. 133. Corpus omne ardore
tremat, sit nobilior in vobis spiritus, vis in pectore ardeat igne, micet in praecordiis flamma, flagret impium in studiis cor: nil sine magno vita
labore dedit mortalibus; quasquis enim duros casus, virtutis amore.) ]
1. As I have often written about the connection made within the Renaissance mind between memory-arts and philosophy,- stemming from a more
tenuous separation of the conscious and unconscious mind, intentional thought and poetic-associative memory, etc. so a connection could
fruitfully be worked out by our scholars, which was made in this same era between law, or 'jurisprudence', and philosophy. As stated in
Accursius' Digest: civilis sapientia vera philosophia dicitur, id est amor sapientiae; jurisprudence is the true philosophy, toward which the love of
Wisdom directs us. For anything approaching a complete reconstruction of the connective tissue noted here, by which the cultural inheritance of
the Athenians was yet preserved only a few centuries ago,- or what Pound would call the paeiduma of the Renaissance humanists,- one must turn
first to the Corpus Juris Civilis, or perhaps more importantly, the piles of glosses on the Justinian Institutes, notably compiled by Accursius, just
as Pomponius, in light of his own reconstructive effort, turned back to the history of Roman law, echoing the traditional recognition of Athens as
having originated the foundational ideas of the Hellenic philosophy, and rather eloquently gives to us the pseudo-mythic or Thucydidean account
of the journey made by the decemviri, in preparation for the composition of the Twelve Tables, to the great Law-Makers of Greece, under whose
guidance the Tables were wrought as what Cicero calls "the very image of antiquity", whose vastitutdes of knowledge were not equaled by all the
libraries of the philosophers: "leges duodecim tabularum liber singularis", (Cicero), or out of Balduinus, "leges restitutas et explicatas".
Barthelemy de Chasseneux, in the Catalogus Gloria Mundi, tells us that a true legal knowledge would, like all scientia, attempt to find the
"causes" of things, by which the distinction between the world of nature, or more precisely, the eternal laws of nature, and the world of human
society, whose laws were mutable and whose causes obscured,- again recalling the Dantean 'double-principle' of man,- might be more subtly
navigated. A similar idea is stated in another excellent example of legal philosophy, namely Sir Edward Coke's Finibus Levatis, or the
Commentaries on the Institutes of the Laws of England,- a man for whom, contrary to the opinions of mere historians, the beginnings of Law
were to be found solely in the first systematic observation of the Natural world: the wise man begins with his ending, and moves only from the
'causes of things', to their effect. (Quod inutilis labor & fine fructu non est effectus legis. Sapiens incipit a fine.) Note: "Philosophy and
Humanism; Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Osk. Kristeller." As to a few more pieces of modern scholarship hoping to reconstruct the
obscure connection between jurisprudence or civil law and Platonic philosophy, as were naturally formed within the Renaissance imagination,
now lost to us for the same reason the connection between the memory-arts, magic, cryptograph, and poetic invention was lost,- namely a
technologically accelerated fragmentation of human knowledge, note: "A Realist Epistemology of Faith", by Paul A. Macdonald Jr., as well as
"Vera Philosophia: The Philosophical Significance of Renaissance Jurisprudence", by Donald R. Kelley, along with Vico's "De Universi Juris
Uno Principo et Fine Uno." Thus, inasmuch as Law finds its origins in the first philosophers, and inasmuch as philosophy is simply the conscious
expression, through the mind of the human being, of the secret impulse of Nature, or the will of Life itself,- in the deepest stirrings of the daemon
upon incognizant matter,- to occupy the total plenitude of ousia, (Ernest Renan. Note "Aristotle vs. Plato: The Balkans' Paradoxical
Enlightenment."; Dimitris Michalopoulos, BJSEP, Vol. 1, Number 1: "For human life is nothing else than the tendency to pass from potentiality
to act in order to be all that it is possible to be.") so one must equally recognize Law as a certain movement from potentiality to actuality, from
cognitio to voluntas, the logical commensuration of such movement, or more than this, an expression of the Fullness of Being.
This is a single paragraph and footnote from out of one of my books. It is on the subject the title of this thread indicates. I close my eyes, recite the Ayers of the Enochian scheme; I practice the diagrammatic circuits of the sacred JEU... I leave this world and look into myself. And when a single sentence and a single footnote to it prompts the following... I... try to talk to people, but. There's nothing there. So I get wasted and talk to myself. Foreign language quotes in italics, authors and books cited without italics... I said so before... explaining my legend, notation... Time for more drugs.... this took a long time to format for this web... forum... thing. Loosing my buzz, time to re-up. I think I have a urinary tract infection, my dick's sore. Feels weird when I piss. It's getting better though so I think I'm cool. My teeth are rotting, but none hurt, so at least I don't need to worry about getting sick... My body is going. I've sent the pics, I used to have literal ten-pack abs. But I think I''m ... I think dying now. Either the alcohol or the alcohol+drugs combo, I just am not... Processing food. Anyway. The extent and depth of my knowledge... scares even me. My brain itself is haunted.. by these ghosts. They never stop. Talking. Talking. Talking. Talking. Stop. I am entering the final stage. My own thought, plus the greatest compendium of knowledge ever assembled on this earth. That is what I'm leaving behind. No room for friends, brothers, lovers, for... anything. I am done. This is it. And this post is literally a single atom of the mental universe I have assembled. I'm ready to die for it. Until then, here is a sinlgle thread; one hair, one atom, one ... sentence... one,. I ask the Gods to give me just another 5-10 years so I can get all my text in order, it's... so much. That's all I ask. Give me that and I will leave this place without complaint... Just a little more time...
Man must avoid attaching his soul to passing things, yet only by an opening up of the Stoical
anima to the passing of the moment can man distinguish the one thing from another- the resilient
from the fleeting, the virtuous from the vain, bearing that 'earthly fragment' of Goethe's angels in
chaos eadem cernentibus omnibus ipsa, quos privant oculis tempus in omne suis; or, as Pindar
said to similar effect, so do we read the shape of our life by shadows, or even the shadow of a
dream, for desire is the memory of desire's every defeat, and love is the memory of all that love
has lost and failed to gain, in utilius cunctis animum tenuisse refertum vanitas fugiens. [Petrus
Cordinus, Collatio Saporum, ex Sophoclaeum: Utilius cunctis animum tenuisse refertum: cum
visio sint haec & vanitas fugiens; atque chaos eadem cernentibus omnibus ipsa, quos privant
oculis tempus in omne suis.] Besides, it is more often pathos that reproves us, not reason; desire
that thwarts desire, not ethos,- non virtus, fregit voluptas; nec potuit virtus vincere, sed vitium.
[Romula non virtus, fregit Campana voluptas, nec potuit virtus vincere, sed vitium. Stephanus
Paschasius Iurisconsulti, in Iconum Poemata Liber, No. 42; ad Huraltum Chiuernium
Cancellarium.] Having earlier noted the ends of human nature, as necessarily beyond the ends of
the ancient Cynical estimation of the "fragilius terra fabricatio", or the infirmity of Natural
generation, it were still a faith borne in frustraque sibi arrodat ungues, qui non sit a naturam ad
Poesin; [Nature thwarts the tongue of the poet who would defy her. Phillipus Brietius
Abbavillaeus, in: Poetis Syntagma; refer to the preface to the fragmentary Roman poets.
Quanquam etiam divinus ille furor a Deo tantum concedatur nonnullis; frustraque sibi arrodat
ungues, qui non sit a naturam factum ad Poesin; nihilominus innata vis illa imitatione multum
perficitur, & magnum hactenus momentum attulit carmina tentantibus, legisse carmina.] it were
only a glimmering of the 'World-Soul' and that fatal impulse, "which needs must work out its
own salvation within the heart of the individual",- athanaton in omnis anima est immortalis
adsequatur perfecta Timaeum,- [Res una quaeque, sive per naturam, sive per rationem agat,
bonum & finem intendit; &, si bonum & finem adsequatur, perfecta; sin vero eo excidat, misera
est, & infelix. Cum itaque homo anima sit praeditus rationali, quae immateria, indissolubilis, &
immortalis est; huic quoque; tale bonum conveniet, quod mensuram & durationem corporis
excedat, & cum ipsa immortali anima, post discessum a corpore, perennet. Christfidi
Saggitarius, in: Otium Jenenses Commentationum Philologicarum & Philosophicarum; Dis.
Secunda; Gnostos, ΤΟ ΓΝΩΕΤΟΝ ΤΟ ΤΗΕΟΝ; Notitia Dei, Anteloquium.] nor mourned with
wisdom's 'prudent terrors' di questa morte delle idee piu sublimi, [The 'small death' of sublime
ideas. Del pensier dello schiavo; io frenar deggio l impeto dell etade, ed insegnargli i prudenti
terrori, e dirgli: e chiusa ogni splendida via; languidi, oscuri passeranno i tuoi giorni, e questa
morte delle idee piu sublimi, ordin si chiama. Time breedeth slaves of all, checks the gamble of
ambition and teacheth better still, the prudent terrors of age; every splendid way is closed;
languid, the tired artist will number his days in darkness, and only he is left to mourn the death of
man's sublimest thoughts. Foscarinus, in: Tragedia Scelte ed Altre Rime di Giovambatista
Niccolini.] a knowledge gambled ex Pieriis auctor amoris vatibus iuventates [It were an ill
omen, that a youth should excel in writing poetry, most of all in the service of Amore; let him
take heed. <!!> Heu periit latia quod erat periit decus omne iuventate simul humani delitiae
generis. Denique Pieriis si quis fuit auctor amoris vatibus, huic puero cederet. Dedicatio
Alexandri Cinnuttius Senensis, Poetarum Foeliciter Incipiunt. Corollary to this, one might add
that the heart is tested ex amor major in unicum,- by possession, not temptation. Insofar as the
youth does not possess even himself, it were hardly worthy of dispute, as to the measure of his
heart in possession of another. Out of Iudicellus Rouyant, Odes: amor major in unicum qui cum
dona suo plurima divites omnes ferre duci cerneret, et nihil praeter pauperiem posset ei suam
offerre, in manibus detulit optimam illi fontis aquam castalii suis.] upon the immortal soul with
the emphemeron and blade of grass, in turpitudinem malam esse docuit,- [Man does not naturally
fear death, but that he is taught to. † Micraelius, in: Ethnophronius Tribus Dialogorum, Liber
Primus; de Animae Humanae Immortalitate. (To the same point, note also: "Piae & Sanae
mentes haec ingenia beneficia Dei, propter maximas utilitates in vita humano generi concessa,
agnoscunt & magnificiunt, ac auribus ipsis atque; animus abhorrent ab illis insulsis & Epicureis
vulgi clamoribus." Epistola Ioachimi Hellerius Leucopetraeus in Albohali.) As to the 'neglectful
death' of greater things: hic si paulo longius vitam extenderit, quoque, extendet? Properat cursu
vita citato, volucrique; die rota praecipus vertitur anni. Et quemadmodum animalculum
quoddam, ephemeron vel hemerobion dictu, juxta bosporum nasci vidistis, cujus vita uni dici
termino includitur, cum mane nascatur & sit infans, meridie vigeat & juventutem teneat, vesperi
senescat vivendique; ita quoque; si cuncta gauda nostra, vel voluptates, & quaecumque; ex haec
universitate mundi vel sollicitatum adspectu, vel bladiuntur usu diligeter excutias, tota civita
hominis un est dies. Ibid.] or better, upon the strength of a single thread, though it were a thread
that measured all the world in uno peccato longam telam texere, ex fracti magnitudine mali,
prorsus deficiunt a virtute, [Ita hostis Dei & generis humani, novit ex uno peccato longam telam
texere. It were a web that covers all the world, though it were threaded by a single sin. Fracti
magnitudine mali, prorsus deficiunt a virtute. Sorrow is a deficiency of virtue, portioned to our
dispensation from the fates: in res longe fortuna regressus est. (Res longe fortuna regressa est.
In: Mylonymus Evirenaeus Coloniensis; Carmen Heroicum Permissu Divino sit Licitum.) Of
Youth: Iuuentus adhuc ignara vitae, imaginatur homines nasci ad delitias, & fruendas
voluptates, & has ociosis animis expetit et querit, sed senes, qui degustarunt communes miserias,
longa aliter iudicant, ac intelligunt, hanc vitam universam, plenam esse aerumnarum. For these
three paraphrases, refer to Ioannis Pollicarius, in: de Fugacitate, Miseriae, et Inconstantia Vitae,
et Omnium Rerum Humanarum Zachariae Vicentini Liliae; et Contra Sylva Quaedam
Consolationum Philosophicarum.] or no less faithfully in any case, than is the total existence of
our terrestrial inhabitation measured by its first moment, for it were a cosmos that shall live for
no greater a span of time than was the Apple of Knowledge chewed in the mouths of those first
of our race, who declined higher stewardship over the Garden paradisaical. [As to this
remarkable figuration concerning the Garden, note Lancelot Andrewes, in: Apospasmatia Sacra,
P. 196. "To conclude, we see into what misery man is fallen for a little vain pleasure of sin,
which lasted but the space while the apple was chewed in their (Adam and Eve) mouths ..."]
† Thus, that 'if Death measureth the mind',- mortis apud perpenderit mens, in genus
deprehenderit hemerobion,- 1 [Adamae Melchioriis Apographum Monumentorum ex Officina
Cambierius Item Oratio in Funere de Marsilli Inguenuae.] or having been so taught, in cupienti
mori copia mortis non sit, [Boessius Dionysius Saluagnius Delphinatis, Commentarius Ovidii,
interpretes Sophoclaeum.] and brought up with this corrupta timore, (the 'Theophilii noxa
imaginatricis') one might wish to confer blame,- either to the Thebanus Linae (Linus of the
poets) or the Lina Orphaeum, (Linus of the philosophers.) [Valeri. Probus Berytius, in
Commentaria Virgili Eclogae. Linus autem thebanus poeta fuit Apollinis sum eos, quos nunc
poeta sequitur filius. Nu satis excesserat dicedo linus poeta Orpheaque theologum.] though it
were of no real account to make demarcation thereof, or sequester the ends of human nature by
the ends of art,- quad omnino homines scientia in omnes artium vincis; [Petrus Chabbotius
Gualterii Pictonis Sanlupensis, in: Praelectiones Horatii Venusini Vatis Poemata Explicantur.
Hippia Socratices dicitur: omnes omnino homines scientia plurimarum artium vincis. The study
of human nature demands the study, equally, of all arts. The 'noxa imaginatricis' is also
discussed here,- an object of thought lacking the 'material image' through which memory
stabilizes the 'energeia' of the 'atomic' (a la. Lucretius) passions and directs them toward some
end,- as having, in the Epicurean theory, subverted the role of the ratio in the delineation of
natural goods from ills.] nor were it of greater moment, be that blame imputed to the common
'misera ambitione laborat' * of mortality, endured in morbus dat generosa morbum with the
philosophers,- or perfected in acheronice gravi ex studiam virtutis by the theologues,- [Georgius
Dottanius Sartoris Menigensiis, in: Carmen Lysitelilogon de Poetices Commoditatibus Contra
Sacrilogos Divini Muneris Osores. Recall the soliloquies of Lysiteles, from out of Plautus,
concerning the pitfalls of Love, finally reproving us, not to simply avoid it, but to 'fear' it, in the
enigmatical apothegm offered out of Goethe's Faust, which we might extend to the charm of
poetry.] a Labor knowing the 'works and days' which are our charge, from out of Genesis, which
even still cannot crush the heart of sin like the grasshopper, which pulls itself along under the
weight of Vanity,- inane labore putas curam vitiisque amissum nescis Paradisum,- [Umbritius
Cantianus, in: Satira Juvenalis ad Pamphilum Urbanum. Species ita flectere inanes corda virum
longe qui non indulta tuentur. Nempe labore putas, curam, vitiisque vacare ruricolas. Amissum
nescis paradisum, et dira tropae inferni regis?] or still, the morbo affectum libidinem read out of
the furious voluptancies of Nature,- a 'dulcis venenum' in vitium irreparabile mutat enjoyed here
below the occluded firmament, et oculi aeterno confudere Vultus,- [Guidonis Vanninius
Lucensis, Carminum; Precatio ad Deum: ab dulce venenum dulcis amarices vitium, et nimium
reparabile mutat in damnum mortis; Lunae valeat confundere vultus, aeternosque oculos coeli
foedare.] an 'earthly fragment' borne with the angels ex theia anaphora praxteon, whose depth
were measured only by the height of our Fall, qua peccatorum differentia in progressu ad ingens
praecipitum,- [Urbanus Siberus, in: Enchiridion Sextus Pythagoraeus Christi ut Codicem
Rhenanius. P. 281-282. Quum itaque non vult, aliquod peccatum alio levius dici, hoc tantum
cupit, e peccatorum differentia proclivitatem peccandi introducendam non esse, siquidem ex
tenui progressu ad ingens praecipitium abiri soleat. Note Thom. Gattacerus, ad Marcum
Antoninum; lib. III: 'theia anaphora praxteon'. παν και το μικροτατον συν τε επι θεια αναφορα
πραχτεον.] a sorrow exalted with the Prometheia of Knowledge ('luctus miseros in Daedaliis
ignipotens devinxit crura Prometheia'; Daedalus ignipotens devinxit crura Promethei
compedibus quondam iussu Iovis cruentis. In: Antonius Thylesius Consentinus, Carmina et
Epistolae ex codice Morellianii.) and the baneful Apple in serpentibus perpetuo morsum, after
the Poets.** [Tanaquillus Fabrius de Caen, in: Futilitate Poetices. Paraphr: Poetices morbo
affectum libidinem in voluptatibus corporis immersos, (recall the Ovidian 'mortis imago' alluded
to earlier) illum a serpentibus perpetuo morsum. P. 31-32. Note the similar language (to both of
our previous citations) employed by Varusaeus in his Annalium Complectitur Historiam Boicum,
concerning likewise, the 'separation' of the name, 'ex virtutis nomen anima aedificat': "Ejus
ambitionem & habendi libidinem non nihil induxere aliqua templorum aedificia, animo tam
immerso foedis corporis voluptatibus, ut non modo honestatis formam, sed etiam virtutis nomen
horreret.", ie. ambition alone raises temples as much as the name of virtue raises the heart of the
virtuous.] Recall that, when the Serpent managed to convince Eve to taste of Knowledge, he did
not simply promise that she would not die, but that she would "not die the death of things",- the
'morte moriermini' of Origen, (translated literally, the phrase simply means "dying death") or,
out of Nazianus' mystical vocabulary, the death of the 'autothanatos',- this fact generally
signifying a symbolic gap intrinsic to the Word, through which another kind of death might be
precipitated upon the human race, as upon all of Nature,- the 'terrestrial paradise' of which man
was once spiritually injoined through the Adamic tongue,- 'in poetas antiquissimum sapientia
genus philosophatos',- [Poetas, antiquissimum sapientum genus, primos omnium philosophatos
esse. The first philosophers, were said to have been poets; poetry as the 'primordial' wisdom in
primos omnium philosophatum. Iohann Gott. Heineccius, in: Elementa Philosophiae Rationalis et
Moralis, Accessere Historia; de Philosophia Graecanica.] a Nature whose 'various language'
[Bryant: "To him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks
a various language ..." A lost immediacy once enjoyed as a 'rhapsody of images', in Hamann's
phrase, through which Adam had named the animals.] were torn now from him by the 'asylum
ironia' of a more 'human language',- a vicious circle extended ad aeternam animae aur
felicitatem, aut miseriam pertinerent confabulatum. [Neque omnes, neque omnibus in rebus decet
ironia. In verba sunt, in nuga sunt ineptia. Nicolai Serrarius, in: Logi-Logia; Opusculorum
Theologicorum.]
1. Quae mortis genera si Christiana mens, ut debet, apud se perpenderit: an non hemerobion nos esse genus deprehendet? an non Homericum, aut
potius ex divinarum literarum myrothecio recordabitur & repetet illud: homo vanitati similis dies ejus, quasi umbra praeteriens? nebulae instar
dies nostri evanescant; pleraque enim epigraphae non nomen solum defuncti & diem e mortualem; sed vita etiam curriculum circum scripte & res
praeclare domi forisque patratas per vulgant.
* 'vel circa finem laborum'; in miseriam nostram cumulare, satis alias coecam, labori vere ulterius non obfuscet per abusum bonorum
temporalium. Engestromii Gradualis de Praestantissima Vita Theoretica atque Practica. P. 32.
** The two works cited here, (the Futilitate Poetices and the Carmina Contra Sacrilogos Λυσιτελιλογιον) seemingly framing opposing sides of
the one discussion, defend poetry against philosophy and religion, on the one hand, while the other defends philosophy and religion against the
'futilities' or "asylum ironia" of the poets. The first of the two, as quoted here, will be rendered in paraphrase: Nil genus antiquum terre titanta
pubes continuo magni fulmine vieta Iovis? Monitis ceca divinis pectora format interpres vite rectios omnis abest sacra anime illuviem scelerate
monstrat; et atram peste diluere qua ratione queas pectus si tumidum misera ambitione laborat instriuit exemplis qua brevis omnis honor, quam sit
bono; res solicito corrupta timore sed curis humili libera vita loco ignis avaritie, si torret pectora dire quo pellas morbus dat generosa morbum,
spicula capti oculis qui blanda cupidinis intus sita geris medico experiere manus absterret pene vicio formidine grandi manes quam miseri bant
acheronice gravi ex studiam virtutis premia iusta.
<!> INCIPIT OSSIAE: a note on my use of "Dante's philosopher-king". Omnia quae soluit, nisi mors quoque soluit amorem,- [Albertus
Vespasianus, in Lachrymae Poetica Catellae; Aldina Epistola ad Dominum Suum. Death, that opens all doors, and readeth the thesaurus of
Nature, yet closes one. Omnia quae soluit, nisi mors quoque soluit amorem; non opus est signis, si tuus extat amor.] or, as the knowing of Heaven
were begun in the un-knowing of the faithful here below, 'inchoat cognitionem cognitio fides, fidem continuas contiuam in cognitio', [Hadrianus
Castellesius, in: de Vera Philosophia. Note, 'iuxta mensuram uniuscuiusque peccati intelligentiae caecitas', in Gregorius Magnus' Moralia.] so the
conclusion of earthly law were begun in the tacit mensura of earthly life,- in hominum vita et moribus tota est philosophia, 1 [Charondaeus, in
Peithanon; (Πειθανων) Praefatio Prudentissimumque Praesidem Iacobum Lignerium: "veram philosophiam dixerit quae in hominum vita et
moribus tota est"; "cette noble science des choses divines et humaines". (Ut Hermogenianae:) His enim tota jurisprudentiae natura exprimitur: ne
quid qua de jurisprudentiae dici potest, quod haec duo capita referri non possit.] or more properly, our reckoning with a 'doubled-double', (like
the infernal bivium of Virgil's underworld, upon which departing souls enjoy their valedictions) ex duplex casu homine coetu philosophi genus
extitum,- 2 [Paulus Aringhius Romanus Nerianis, in: Monumenta Infelicitatis, sive Mortes Peccatorum Pessimae.] the 'duo ultimos hominis', in
the Dantean phrase; (α) an earthly fragment borne in coelitus delapsa Dianae aiopetous,- [ie. the "double-birth" of the soul, whose lower vegetal
creation emerges through natural processes,- the products of Diana's corporeal consorts,- and whose rational faculty exists as a separate destiny,
originating in God, or the solar genius of Amphitrite. The phrase is drawn from Eustachius Rudius Bellunensis, the early Galenic
psychologist-philosopher, in: de Humani Affectibus Liber. Note also, Cornelius Meierius, in: Theologica Lucae Axiopistia; P. 137.] or, to cite the
celestial refrain of Goethe's chorus-mysticus, even with the sorrow of the angels, that could find no hopeful commensuration of our lower
inhabitancies with "the mind's invincible force"; [As to similar conceptualizations of the Hesiodic-Prodican-Pythagorean 'upsilon', as interpreted
by the likes of a Petrarch or Virgil in their poetic figurations of the ambiguous twisting of life's paths, or in the gates of Ivory and Horn in the
world below, note G. H. Tucker, in "Homo Viator; Itineraries of Exile", "Of the Pilgrimage of Life; Of the Tabula Cebetis." Such figurations
demand a poetry of regret, and in fact they have one in Joachim Du Bellay, whose elegiac collection, "The Regrets", express more generally, the
traistre espoir of the poet, in errabunda vestigia forte cupido fugiens, (Censorinus ad Caerellium Natali; Pseudo-Lucii Carmina Amore in
Heroicum, Interprete Politianii: errabunda meus vestigia forte cupido qua fugiens tulerit) or the susceptibility of neglected genius to the vagaries
of imagination which so often plagued the dramatis personae of the Plautine cycle,- a 'genium suum defrauder' (the tendency of genius to deceive
itself) confounded by the mysteries of Heaven in stulti coelestis praeconia verbi spargimus mysteri iustum, to recall the tragic folly of Ioannes
Pollastrinus Aretinus, in the Sermonem ad Pomphilianus.] an 'angelic sorrow' from the perspective of the contemplative mode, though more aptly
characterized by the 'treacherous hopes and dreams' of worldly life,- a treachery intimated withal elegance by the specter of Rome, (to which de
Bellay address his verse) the spirit of whose fervented curia, (to be later resurrected by the Italian and Renaissance courts) socially energized to
the point that "success and failure answer to no rules",- save perhaps the direction of the wind,- (in keeping with a certain rather ludical aphorism
3 preserved amidst the fragmentary Stoa) "defies the ambitions of paroemiography." [MacPhail, in "Dancing Around the Well: the Circulation of
Commonplaces in Renaissance Humanism."] Let us recall here the myth of the Bodhisattva. Having attained the nibbanic vision, he refused
re-absorption into the Godhead, that he be instead re-precipitated into the dregs of matter, crushed once more and a thousand times more beneath
the Wheel of Time, echoing the 'divine infidelity' of the Godhead itself, as I have often preferred to name it- the Creator's having turned his back
upon the Creation. He does this so that, after being thrown back into the cycle of birth and death and rebirth, he might continue to exist alongside
the rest of the species and serve as a guide for others,- returning from the underworld like the soul of Aeneas, having alchemically purified the
'subsolary bivium' and, over the flowering branches of the aureaus ramus and mystical ilanoth,- reft from his heart like the Lapis of the
philosophers,- or even wielding the Mercurial aureus virgo,- the golden wand of Hermes,- prepared therewith, to lead the dead through the
Hadean undersoul in the attainment of the Paradise he refused, and will refuse again. This duplicity, of having attained the highest vision and
denied it to one's self; this deliberate act of sin, a profane 'anti-wisdom' embodied by the creator-artist or Munikava; to fall purposefully, as the
Demiurge or Gnostic angel himself did, back into matter, and to endure with all deliberation, the "captivity" to the passions, or the long
'flesh-experiment' which the Zosimian gnostics took their lives on earth to be: this 'sacred sin' or 'profane gnosis' is what Dante calls the duo
ultimos hominis, that is, an aporia or interim between the conclusion of the earthly and celestial demands upon human nature in 'deferunt
judicium'. ["a deference of justice"; Caspar Cellarius Thuringus, in: de Sortitione. "... deferunt judicium, ut longius progredi nequit humana
sagacitas.”] We find this "duo ultimo hominis" continually defended by Dante, from his theological, to his political, to his poetic texts, as an
"aporetic ground" through which an indeterminate interim between the consummation of earthly and divine authority is described through the
memory of the 'terrestrial paradise', per paradisum terrestrem figuratur, [J. Aleksander, The Aporetic Ground of Revelation's Authority in the
Divine Comedy and Dante's Demarcation and Defense of Philosophical Authority.] "stressing the nature and function of each alike as a moment
of reconfigured consciousness preliminary to the soul’s entry into the immediate presence of God, and in that of Inferno xxix by way of precisely
the opposite, of the soul’s captivity ..." [Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy; Vol. 3; John Took, in: Truth, Untruth, and the Moment of
Indwelling.] such that "the horizontality of human experience, (what Plotinus calls the 'discursivity' of the rationis significans) its unfolding
sequentially or in terms of the before and after of its key components, (a la. 'predicative logic') is resolved in terms of its verticality, ('connexio est
connexorum' ab aeterno in Dei essentia creatrix; note the Spanish philosopher Zumelius, out of Adrianus Herebortius Eleutherii, in the
Meletemata Philosophica. Recall also, the Plotinian 'syntheme' or Image, by which the discursive ratio perceives the 'totum simul' of the pure
intellectus, or, citing Aspasius Caramuelius in his Ioco-Seriorum Naturae et Artis, the veluti hieroglyphica in primordiis Mundi connexae,- a
plenitude of meaning inexpressible by any number of associative, inter-connected semiotic chains or 'signs', accordingly perceived within an
instant of Time like the material synthesis of Vico's 'poetic logic',- much as the God-Mind, according to Gombrich, in his analysis of the role of
the ecstatic Image in the metaphysics of art, apprehends its object as a simultaneous perichoreia of its own divine attributes, ex sapientiam
intellectu potentiali in materia ex potius semina. See, Nicolai Iacobi Loensiis Epiphillidum: Philosophicis in mentem procreatricem esse
principiorum ingenuit enim natura.) of the height and depth of that experience.", [Ibid.] as cast beyond the thin borders of earthly power, that
would temper the humor of the Kings,- Caesareas leges, Caesareasque minas,- [Nemo magistratus audit regesque; Caesareas leges,
Casareasque minas. Johann. Atrocianus, in: Poemata, Rustico Elegia. The monarch without audience issues threats, not laws.] or, if not wholly
resolved, than submit to the heroic cycles of spiritual ekstasis and moral humiliation, heroic love and moral cupidity- the depth and ascent
whereby, in the Brunonian account, we may in the least boast the glory of a 'sapiens romanus', enduring the Stoa its worldly vicissitudes ex
interim dum vivimus in mundo inter larvatos medii vitium specie virtutus & umbra; [Albertus Schumacherus Theologii-Ansgarianiis, in: Oratio de
Simplicitate. "Sapiens Romanus; philosophia, quae ad deum spectat altior est animosior, multum permisit sibi, non suit oculis contenta. Majus
quiddam suspicata est, ac pulchrius, quod extra conspectum natura posuisset. Sin mortuis, nihil sentiatur, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum
mortui philosophi irrideant." (Cirellius Germanis, Ethica Aristotelica eiusdem Ethica Christiana. Glorioso est commendatio philosophiae apud
Romanum sapientem: Philosophia quae ad Deum spectat altior est & animosior multum permisit sibi, non fuit oculis contenta. Majust esse
quiddam suspicata est, ac pulchrius quod extra conspectum natura possuit. Sin mortuis, nihil sentiatur, non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum
mortui philosophi irrideant.) Cornelius Marci de Fraconia, Oratio de Bacchanalibus Vitiorum sub Speciosa Virtutum Larva Ultus Nequitiam
Velantium: Fallit enim vitium specie virtutus & umbra; impia sub dulci melle venena latent. Interim dum vivimus mundo inter larvatos medii,
(dum furit Lyaeus, dum regnat rosa, dum madent capilli) ea, quae emendare non possumus, feramus, locumque apud nos relinquamus concinno
Aristippi effato. (Aristippus: He is truly modest, who can enjoy excess without corruption: qui vere pudicus est, nec inter bacchanalia
corrumpitur. Or, to the same point, from out of Boissartus Vesuntinus, in the Theatrum: Suave Dei munus vinum est; hominumque saluti
conducit; praesit dummodo sobrietas.)] as likewise, the fortuna of Salutatius,- an 'imagina per virtu propria' for whose estimation we deserve no
praise for that Good which makes us Good, but for the Goods we've wrought, in sofferi colpe meritarono, for the compensation of our Evils. [For
the sins of the father only bear inheritance, never his virtues: "A ragion posseder ciascun s' imagina cio, che per virtu propria i padri ot tennero;
ma sofferir a torto ogn'un querela si cio, che con le lor colpe meritarono." See Bongiia Gratarolus, in Polissena; ex Cassandra Interlocutore
Tragoedia-Poemata. Note: one must observe the Roman conceptualization of Fate, as emerging "vertically" from the subject, that is, from some
internal force,- a daemonic impulsion toward self-destruction and habit expressing Dante's 'duo ultimis', in strict contrast to the Greek idea of
Fortune, as depicted on the one hand by Aeschylus, (recalling the poetic trope) who, while busy writing, oblivious to the eagle flying over head,
is suddenly killed when it drops a turtle on him,- a Fortune that, by imposing an external force upon the individual, or 'fortuna fortunans', (a
'Fortuna fortunans', just as the 'natura naturans' indicates the active principality of Nature. Note the following, Joannes Thuilius
Mariaemontanum Tirolensem de Brisgoiae, in the great commentaries, ie. Alciati Commentariis Amplissimis, et Claudius Minoeus et Franciscus
Sanctius Brocensis Notis. Ex Sophoclaeum: Only those with excess of virtue, possess it; only those who continually strive for virtue, do not lose
it; * "Virtutis (arete) sola constants perpetuaque; possessio." Or, with this 'virtutis sola constans' negatively stated, out of Panemus Cisseus
Cordarus Alexandrinus, in Lucii Sectanius ad Gaium Salmorium Sermones: "A wisdom found, not in dust, but in sweat, for where Ambitio fails,
Desire only reigns"; sapientum ex ordine nullum invenies hodie, inquit, in hoc qui pulvere multum no sudet; perdidit ambitio, & regnandi dira
cupido. Note also, from the Encomium Sapientiae ex Parallelis Ethices Naturalis et Divinae: ex Socrates: "O virtus ardua laboriosaque generi
humano, pulcherrima vitae inventio! Tuam o virgo, ob venustatem etiam mori in Graecia optabilis habetur mors, ac labores vehementes et
indefessos perpeti. Talem pectori inseris fructum immortalem, auro potiorem. ... Ethices naturalis origo est natura, nimirum Deus, quatenus ipse
est uti fortuna fortunans, ita et natura naturans, puta auctor et conditor naturae.") can for that reason simply be sublated by an internal
recognition of the primacy of Knowledge, which gives us the secondary depiction of Greek Fate, by way of a corollary and opposing trope,-
namely the heroic acceptance of the judgement of the court, which Socrates evinced toward his own Fate: "Vera esset Virtus praestantior,
Iustitiane, an Fortitudo?" "Nec morti nec vinculis Sapientem cedere." Note Schonhovius Godanius, in: Partim Moralita, Partim etiam Civilia. The
'daemon' of Greece had not yet been transposed from its horizonal-discursive media, ie. the 'palintrope', until the Platonic theory of the metaxy 4
finally joined Eros with it as a vertical element, (which was of course realized, not in the culture of Greece, that is, the culture of Athens, but in
that of the Rome) revealing a Horatian 'vita labore dedit mortalibus' behind the curtain of Fortune, and therefor a certain 'moral uncertainty' as
well, [For an expression of this ambiguity, we have: Schumbergi Tobiae Tironensis Philosophiae Practicae Renovata Pharus Divina et
Serperastra; Aphorisimi. Quot sunt species virtutis moralis, tot sunt species bestialitatis. There are as many forms of virtue as there are of vice.]
for which the earlier, more 'Athenian' mode of philosophy, conducted in studium pallio et humi cubaret, [Iulius Capitolinus, in: Antonius
Philosophus.] or a purely intellective sublation, in philosophiciis menti componerem virtutes laborem ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque
labores, [Cassius Parmensiis Poetae inter Epicos Veteres Orpheus et Chrytaeii-Commentariolum; Facienda No. II, P. 25. "Virtu componere
mentem ad magnae virtutis opus magnosque labores." The sufficient telling of virtuous works, which we observe in the greatest of our poets and
philosophers, is an ample stimulus, and justly inclinates man toward heroic labor.**] was no sufficient guide in the accomplishment of Virtue,
that is, for the navigation of a Virgilian bivium with which the subject must inwardly contend- in flagret impium philosophicis cor duros virtutis
amore.*** ('The true philosophy tests our love of Virtue.' In keeping with the meditation on the Pythagorean verses concerning the ambiguities of
the turns of fate out of which life is constituted, taken out of Henricus Diestius, in: de Ratione Studii Theologici. P. 133. Corpus omne ardore
tremat, sit nobilior in vobis spiritus, vis in pectore ardeat igne, micet in praecordiis flamma, flagret impium in studiis cor: nil sine magno vita
labore dedit mortalibus; quasquis enim duros casus, virtutis amore.) ]
1. As I have often written about the connection made within the Renaissance mind between memory-arts and philosophy,- stemming from a more
tenuous separation of the conscious and unconscious mind, intentional thought and poetic-associative memory, etc. so a connection could
fruitfully be worked out by our scholars, which was made in this same era between law, or 'jurisprudence', and philosophy. As stated in
Accursius' Digest: civilis sapientia vera philosophia dicitur, id est amor sapientiae; jurisprudence is the true philosophy, toward which the love of
Wisdom directs us. For anything approaching a complete reconstruction of the connective tissue noted here, by which the cultural inheritance of
the Athenians was yet preserved only a few centuries ago,- or what Pound would call the paeiduma of the Renaissance humanists,- one must turn
first to the Corpus Juris Civilis, or perhaps more importantly, the piles of glosses on the Justinian Institutes, notably compiled by Accursius, just
as Pomponius, in light of his own reconstructive effort, turned back to the history of Roman law, echoing the traditional recognition of Athens as
having originated the foundational ideas of the Hellenic philosophy, and rather eloquently gives to us the pseudo-mythic or Thucydidean account
of the journey made by the decemviri, in preparation for the composition of the Twelve Tables, to the great Law-Makers of Greece, under whose
guidance the Tables were wrought as what Cicero calls "the very image of antiquity", whose vastitutdes of knowledge were not equaled by all the
libraries of the philosophers: "leges duodecim tabularum liber singularis", (Cicero), or out of Balduinus, "leges restitutas et explicatas".
Barthelemy de Chasseneux, in the Catalogus Gloria Mundi, tells us that a true legal knowledge would, like all scientia, attempt to find the
"causes" of things, by which the distinction between the world of nature, or more precisely, the eternal laws of nature, and the world of human
society, whose laws were mutable and whose causes obscured,- again recalling the Dantean 'double-principle' of man,- might be more subtly
navigated. A similar idea is stated in another excellent example of legal philosophy, namely Sir Edward Coke's Finibus Levatis, or the
Commentaries on the Institutes of the Laws of England,- a man for whom, contrary to the opinions of mere historians, the beginnings of Law
were to be found solely in the first systematic observation of the Natural world: the wise man begins with his ending, and moves only from the
'causes of things', to their effect. (Quod inutilis labor & fine fructu non est effectus legis. Sapiens incipit a fine.) Note: "Philosophy and
Humanism; Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Osk. Kristeller." As to a few more pieces of modern scholarship hoping to reconstruct the
obscure connection between jurisprudence or civil law and Platonic philosophy, as were naturally formed within the Renaissance imagination,
now lost to us for the same reason the connection between the memory-arts, magic, cryptograph, and poetic invention was lost,- namely a
technologically accelerated fragmentation of human knowledge, note: "A Realist Epistemology of Faith", by Paul A. Macdonald Jr., as well as
"Vera Philosophia: The Philosophical Significance of Renaissance Jurisprudence", by Donald R. Kelley, along with Vico's "De Universi Juris
Uno Principo et Fine Uno." Thus, inasmuch as Law finds its origins in the first philosophers, and inasmuch as philosophy is simply the conscious
expression, through the mind of the human being, of the secret impulse of Nature, or the will of Life itself,- in the deepest stirrings of the daemon
upon incognizant matter,- to occupy the total plenitude of ousia, (Ernest Renan. Note "Aristotle vs. Plato: The Balkans' Paradoxical
Enlightenment."; Dimitris Michalopoulos, BJSEP, Vol. 1, Number 1: "For human life is nothing else than the tendency to pass from potentiality
to act in order to be all that it is possible to be.") so one must equally recognize Law as a certain movement from potentiality to actuality, from
cognitio to voluntas, the logical commensuration of such movement, or more than this, an expression of the Fullness of Being.