by means of the exposition, Figurative and Literal.  And by means of this self-same exposition one can sufficiently understand the second verse, even to that part where it says, This Spirit made me look on a fair Lady:  where it should be known that this Lady is Philosophy; which truly is a Lady full of sweetness, adorned with modesty, wonderful for wisdom, the glory of freedom, as in the Third Treatise, where her Nobility will be described, it is made manifest.  And then where it says:  “Who seeks where his Salvation lies, Must gaze intently in this Lady’s eyes;” the eyes of this Lady are her demonstrations, which look straight into the eyes of the intellect, enamour the Soul, and set it free from the trammels of circumstance.  Oh, most sweet and ineffable forms, swift stealers of the human mind, which appear in these demonstrations, that is, in the eyes of Philosophy, when she discourses to her faithful friends!  Verily in you is Salvation, whereby he is made blessed who looks at you, and is saved from the death of Ignorance and Vice.  Where it says, “Nor dread the sighs of anguish, joys debarred,” the wish is to signify, if he fear not the labour of study and the strife of conflicting opinions, which flow forth ever multiplying from the living Spring in the eyes of this Lady, and then her light still continuing, they fall away, almost like little morning clouds before the Sun.  And now the intellect, become her friend, remains free and full of certain Truth, even as the atmosphere is rendered pure and bright by the shining of the midday Sun.

The third passage again is explained by the Literal exposition as far as to where it says, “Still therefore the Soul weeps.”  Here it is desirable to attend to a certain moral sense which may be observed in these words:  that a man ought not for the sake of the greater friend to forget the service received from the lesser; but if one must follow the one and leave the other, the greater is to be followed, with honest lamentation for desertion of the other, whereby he gives occasion to the one whom he follows to bestow more love on him.  Then there where it says, “Of my eyes,” has no other meaning except that bitter was the hour when the first demonstration of this Lady entered into the eyes of my intellect, which was the cause of this most close attachment.  And there where it says, “My peers,” it means the Souls set free from miserable and vile pleasures, and from vulgar habits, endowed with understanding and memory.  And then it says, “Her eyes bear death,” and then it says, “I gazed on her and die,” which appears contrary to that which is said above of Salvation by this Lady.  And therefore it is to be known that one Spirit speaks here on one side and the other speaks there on the other; which two dispute contrariwise, according to that which is made evident above.  Wherefore it is no wonder if here the one Spirit says Yes, and there the other Spirit says No.  Then in the stanza where it says, “A sweet voice of tenderness,”