life of john picus earl of mirandola - The Center for Thomas More ...

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Twelve Properties of a Lover
God will thee help if thou do not refuse:
If other have stand or this thou mayst eftsoon:° 1
Nothing impossible is that hath been done. ¬
THE TWELVE PROPERTIES 2 ⌐ OR CONDITIONS ¬ OF A
LOVER
To love one alone and contemn° all other for that one.
To think him unhappy that is not with his love. 3
To adorn himself for the pleasure of his love.
To suffer all thing, though it were death, to be with his love. 4
To desire also to suffer harm for his love, and to think that hurt
sweet. 5
To be with his love ever as he may, if not in deed, yet in thought.
To love all thing that pertaineth unto his love.¦
To covet the praise of his love, and not to suffer any dispraise.°
To believe of his love all things excellent, and to desire that all
folk should think the same.
To weep often with his love: in presence for joy, in absence for
sorrow. 6
To languish ever, and ever to burn in the desire of his love.
To serve his love, nothing thinking of any reward or profit.
2 eftsoon soon afterwards / 8 contemn despise / 16 dispraise reproach
¦15 More omits amicos omnes, domus, uestes, imagines, “all his friends, houses, clothes, pictures”
(CW 1:376, 377).
1. If other . . . eftsoon: That is, if others (i.e., the saints and martyrs) have stood against temptation,
then you are able to do so as well.
2. TWELVE PROPERTIES: After translating the title and list of properties from the Latin
original, More inserts his meditations on the twelve properties in verse (64.1–70.17). At the end
(following the asterisks in this edition), More renders in verse the lines of prose found immediately
after the twelfth property in Picus’ Latin (70.21–71.6).
3. his love: As Edwards points out, “The pronouns in Picus’ Latin show that the beloved is a man.
By translating ‘his love’ More makes the object of the love ambiguous; the reader of the English
would assume ‘his love’ is a woman” (CW 1:248).
4. To adorn . . . his love: More reverses the order of Picus’ Latin, placing the fourth property
before the third.
5. To desire . . . sweet: This property comes ninth in the Latin (CW 1:376, 377).
6. in presence . . . sorrow: More reverses the order of the Latin—vel si absens ex dolore, vel si praesens ex
laetitia, “either from sorrow when he is away or from joy when he is present” (CW 1:376, 377).
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