The Book of the Courtier
happiness; for they do thus who love truly.”
“Assuredly,” said my lord Unico, “my highest happiness would be to have
a single wish rule her soul and mine.”
“It rests with you to have it so,” replied my lady Emilia.
64.—Then messer Bernardo interrupted and said:
“Certain it is that he who loves truly bends all his thoughts to serve
and please the lady of his love, without being shown the way by others;
but as these loving services are sometimes not clearly perceived, I
think that besides loving and serving it is further necessary to make
some other demonstration of his love so evident that the lady cannot
hide her knowledge that she is loved; yet with such modesty withal that
he may not seem to have small respect for her. And since you, my Lady,
began to tell how the lover’s soul must be the obedient handmaid of his
beloved, I pray you explain this secret also, which seems to me very
important.”
Messer Cesare laughed, and said:
“If the lover is so modest that he is ashamed to tell her of his love,
let him write it to her.”
My lady Emilia added:
“Nay, if he is as discreet as becomes him, he ought to be sure of not
offending her before he declares himself to her.”
Then my lord Gaspar said:
“All women like to be sued in love, even though they mean to refuse that
which they are sued for.”
The Magnifico Giuliano replied:
“You are very wrong; nor should I advise the Courtier ever to employ
this method, unless he be certain of not being repulsed.”
65.—“Then what is he to do?” said my lord Gaspar.
The Magnifico continued:
“If he must speak or write, let him do it with such modesty and so
warily that his first words shall try her mind, and shall touch so
ambiguously upon her wish as to leave a way and certain loophole that
may enable her to feign not to see that his discourse imports love, to
the end that he may retreat in case of difficulty and pretend that he
spoke or wrote to some other end, in order to enjoy in safety those
intimate caresses and coquetries that a woman often grants to him who
she thinks accepts them in friendship, and then withholds them as soon
as she finds they are received as demonstrations of love. Hence those
men who are too precipitate and venture thus presumptuously with a kind
of fury and stubbornness, often lose these favours, and deservedly; for
every noble lady regards herself as little esteemed by him who rudely
wooes her before having done her service.
66.—“Therefore in my opinion the way that the Courtier ought to take to
make his love known to the Lady, seems to me to be by showing it to her
in manner rather than in words;—for verily more of love’s affection is
sometimes revealed in a sigh, in reverence, in timidity, than in a
thousand words;—next by making his eyes to be faithful messengers to
bear the embassies of his heart, since they often show the passion that
is within more clearly than the tongue itself or letters or other
couriers: so that they not only disclose thoughts, but often kindle love
in the beloved’s heart. Because those quick spirits that issue from the
eyes, being generated near the heart, enter again by the eyes (whither
they are aimed like an arrow at the mark), and naturally reach the heart
as if it were their abode, and mingling with those other spirits there
and with that subtle quality of blood which they have in them, they
infect the blood near the heart to which they have come, and warm it,
and make it like themselves and ready to receive the impression of that
image which they have brought with them. Travelling thus to and fro over
the road from eyes to heart, and bringing back the tinder and steel of
beauty and grace, little by little these messengers fan with the breath
of desire that fire which glows so ardently and never ceases to burn
because they are always bringing it the fuel of hope to feed on.
“Hence it may be well said that eyes are the guide in love, especially
if they are kind and soft; black, of a bright and gentle blackness, or
blue; merry and laughing, so gracious and keen of glance, like some
wherein the channels that give the spirits egress seem so deep that
through them we can see the very heart. Then the eyes lie in wait, just
as in war soldiers lurk in ambush; and if the form of the whole body is
fair and well proportioned, it attracts and allures anyone who looks
upon it from afar until he approaches, and, as soon as he is near, the
eyes dart forth and bewitch like sorcerers; and especially when they
send out their rays straight to the eyes of the beloved at a moment when
these are doing the same; because the spirits meet, and in that sweet
encounter each receives the other’s quality, as we see in the case of an
eye diseased, which by looking fixedly into a sound one imparts thereto
its own disease. So methinks in this way our Courtier can in great part
manifest his love for his Lady.
“True it is that if the eyes are not governed with skill, they often
most disclose a man’s amourous desires to whom he least would do so; for
through them there shines forth almost visibly that ardent passion which
(while wishing to reveal it only to his beloved) the lover often reveals
also to those from whom he most would hide it. Therefore he who has not
lost the bridle of reason, governs himself cautiously and observes time
and place, and abstains when needful from such intent gazing, sweetest
food though it be; for an open love is too difficult a thing.”
67.—Count Ludovico replied:
“Sometimes even openness does no harm, for in this case men often think
such a love affair is not tending to the end which every lover desires,
seeing that little care is taken to hide it, nor any heed given whether
it be known or not; and so, by not denying it, a man wins a certain
freedom that enables him to speak openly with his beloved and to be with
her without suspicion; which those do not win who try to be secret,
because they seem to hope for and to be near some great reward that they
would not have others discover.
“Moreover I have often seen very ardent love spring up in a woman’s
heart towards a man for whom she had at first not had the least
affection, simply from hearing that many deemed them to be in love; and
I think the reason of this was because such an universal opinion as that
seemed to her sufficient proof to make her believe the man worthy of her
love, and it seemed as if report brought her messages from the lover
much truer and worthier of belief than he himself could have sent by
letters and words, or another for him.
“Thus, this public report not only sometimes does no harm, but helps.”
The Magnifico replied:
“Love affairs that have report for their minister put a man in great
danger of being pointed at with the finger; and hence he who would
travel this road safely, must feign to have less fire within him than he
has, and content himself with that which seems little to him, and
conceal his desires, jealousies, griefs and joys, and often laugh with
his mouth when his heart is weeping, and feign to be prodigal of that
whereof he most is chary; and these things are so difficult to do, that
they are almost impossible. Therefore if our Courtier would follow my
advice, I should exhort him to keep his love affairs secret.”
68.—Then messer Bernardo said:
“There is need, then, for you to teach him how, and methinks it is of no
small importance; for, besides the signals which men sometimes make so
covertly that almost without a motion the person whom they wish reads in
their face and eyes what is in their heart,—I have sometimes heard a
long and free love talk between two lovers, of which, however, those
present could understand clearly no details at all or even be sure that
the talk was about love. And the reason of this lay in the speakers’
discretion and precaution; for without showing any sign of annoyance at
being listened to, they whispered only those words that signified, and
spoke aloud the rest, which could be construed in different senses.”
Then messer Federico said:
“To speak thus minutely about these precautions of secrecy would be a
journey into the infinite; hence I would rather have some little
discussion as to how the lover ought to maintain his lady’s favour,
which seems to me much more necessary.”
69.—The Magnifico replied:
“I think that those means which serve to win it serve also to maintain
it; and all this consists in pleasing the lady of our love without ever
offending her. Wherefore it would be difficult to give any fixed rule
for it; since in countless ways he who is not very discreet sometimes
makes mistakes that seem little and yet grievously offend the lady’s
spirit; and this befalls those, more than others, who are overmastered
by passion: like some who, whenever they have means of speaking to the
lady whom they love, lament and complain so bitterly and often wish for
things that are so impossible, that they become wearisome by their very
importunity. Others, when they are stung by any jealousy, allow
themselves to be so carried away by their grief that they heedlessly run
into speaking evil of him whom they suspect, and sometimes without fault
either on his part or on the lady’s, and insist that she shall not speak
to him or even turn her eyes in the direction where he is. And by this
behaviour they often not only offend the lady, but are the cause that
leads her to love the man: because the fear that lovers sometimes
display lest their lady forsake them for another, shows that they are
conscious of being inferior to him in merits and worth, and with this
idea the lady is moved to love him, and perceiving that evil is said of
him to put him out of favour, she believes it not although it be true,
and loves him all the more.”
70.—Then messer Cesare said, laughing:
“I own I am not so wise that I could abstain from speaking evil of my
rival, except you were to teach me some other better means of ruining
him.”
My lord Magnifico replied, laughing:
“There is a proverb which says that when our enemy is in the water up to
the belt, we must offer him our hand and lift him out of peril; but when
he is in up to the chin, we must set our foot on his head and drown him
outright. Thus there are some who do this with their rival, and as long
as they have no safe way of ruining him, go about dissimulating and
pretend to be rather his friend than otherwise; then if an opportunity
offers—such that they know they can overwhelm him with certain ruin by
saying all manner of evil of him (whether it be true or false),—they do
it without mercy, with craft, deception and all the means they know how
to invent.
“But since it would never please me to have our Courtier use any deceit,
I would have him deprive his rival of the lady’s favour by no other
craft than by loving and serving her, and by being worthy, valiant,
discreet and modest; in short, by deserving her better than his rival,
and by being in all things wary and prudent, abstaining from all stupid
follies, wherein many dunces fall and in diverse ways. For in the past I
have known some who use Poliphilian words in writing and speaking to
women,[426] and so insist upon the niceties of rhetoric, that the women
are diffident of themselves and account themselves very ignorant, and
think each hour of such discourse a thousand years, and rise before the
end. Others are immoderately boastful. Others often say things that
redound to their own discredit and damage, like some I am wont to laugh
at, who profess to be in love and sometimes say in the presence of
women: ‘I have never found a woman to love me;’ and they do not perceive
that those who hear them at once conclude that this can arise from no
other reason than that they deserve neither love nor the water they